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Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
Ear clips and phone apps that display your heart rhythm turn something invisible into a light changing colour, and for people who have spent years disconnected from what they feel, that outside view is often the first honest feedback they have had. The aim is to need it less as time goes on. Treat it as stabilisers rather than as the truth about you, and be wary of chasing a score.
Abraham asked for something 'just to put my heart at rest' (Quran 2:260) and was not rebuked for asking. Wanting something you can see, in order to believe your own steadiness, is an old and permitted request.
البقرة
وَإِذۡ قَالَ إِبۡرَٰهِـۧمُ رَبِّ أَرِنِي كَيۡفَ تُحۡيِ ٱلۡمَوۡتَىٰۖ قَالَ أَوَلَمۡ تُؤۡمِنۖ قَالَ بَلَىٰ وَلَٰكِن لِّيَطۡمَئِنَّ قَلۡبِيۖ قَالَ فَخُذۡ أَرۡبَعَةࣰ مِّنَ ٱلطَّيۡرِ فَصُرۡهُنَّ إِلَيۡكَ ثُمَّ ٱجۡعَلۡ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ جَبَلࣲ مِّنۡهُنَّ جُزۡءࣰ ا ثُمَّ ٱدۡعُهُنَّ يَأۡتِينَكَ سَعۡيࣰ اۚ وَٱعۡلَمۡ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمࣱ
And when Abraham said, ‘My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead,’ He said, ‘Do you not believe, then?’ ‘Yes,’ said Abraham, ‘but just to put my heart at rest.’ So God said, ‘Take four birds and train them to come back to you. Then place them on separate hilltops, call them back, and they will come flying to you: know that God is all powerful and wise.’
Qur’an 2:260read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta analysis found that heart rate variability biofeedback reduced depressive symptoms in adults, with a moderate pooled effect from a modest number of trials. A separate meta analysis of biofeedback and neurofeedback for depression reported benefit while describing the evidence base as contested, with effect sizes sensitive to which control condition was used. Promising, then, and not grounds for buying a device on its own.
Pizzoli SFM, Marzorati C, Gatti D, Monzani D, Mazzocco K, Pravettoni G. (2021). A meta-analysis on heart rate variability biofeedback and depressive symptoms.. Scientific reports doi
Fernández-Alvarez J, Grassi M, Colombo D, Botella C, Cipresso P, Perna G, Riva G. (2022). Efficacy of bio- and neurofeedback for depression: a meta-analysis.. Psychological medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Seeing a signal you cannot yet feel gives you something to steer by, and the feeling usually catches up with practice.
Breathe in, then push the air out gently against a closed throat, or against lightly pinched nostrils, for a couple of seconds.
You will stop doing this once you feel better. Write it on your list of things that help, so it is there next time instead of forgotten.
Being the baby who never cried is not the same as being secure. It can mean you learned very early that nobody was coming.