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Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Tolerate distress
You are not pretending to be happy and nobody has to see it. The face holds a lot of the tension of a bad state, and it is one of the few parts you can change on purpose inside a second. Do it for a few breaths and then check what has shifted, which is usually small and still worth having.
When trouble befalls man he cries out to Us, whether lying on his side, sitting, or standing (Quran 10:12). Distress is described through the body in every posture, and the body is where you can answer it.
يونس
وَإِذَا مَسَّ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ ٱلضُّرُّ دَعَانَا لِجَنۢبِهِۦٓ أَوۡ قَاعِدًا أَوۡ قَآئِمࣰ ا فَلَمَّا كَشَفۡنَا عَنۡهُ ضُرَّهُۥ مَرَّ كَأَن لَّمۡ يَدۡعُنَآ إِلَىٰ ضُرࣲّ مَّسَّهُۥۚ كَذَٰلِكَ زُيِّنَ لِلۡمُسۡرِفِينَ مَا كَانُواْ يَعۡمَلُونَ
When trouble befalls man he cries out to Us, whether lying on his side, sitting, or standing, but as soon as We relieve him of his trouble he goes on his way as if he had never cried out to Us to remove his trouble. In this way the deeds of such heedless people are made attractive to them
Qur’an 10:12read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
There is no trial of this exact gesture in the evidence in front of me. The nearest is a clinical trial with panic patients trained to breathe more slowly and raise their carbon dioxide levels, where the physiological change tracked the clinical one. It supports the general idea that altering something bodily on purpose can move a state, without telling you what a softer jaw is worth.
Meuret AE, Wilhelm FH, Ritz T, Roth WT. (2008). Feedback of end-tidal pCO2 as a therapeutic approach for panic disorder.. Journal of psychiatric research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The body reports its state upward as well as taking orders from above, so a softer face is one more vote for a calmer setting.
Sometimes the thing that stops your tears is an order somebody gave you decades ago, and you are the one carrying it out now. One woman found her father's words sitting behind a habit of wiping her face dry the moment she cried.
Say it out loud before you start: you decide how much of this you feel, and when. Stopping for a bit is part of the plan, not a failure of it.
Watch for the small thing that happens right as a feeling starts: the reach for a tissue, the laugh, the change of subject. Notice it once and say nothing, notice it again, and only then mention it.