Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
None of this needs explaining to work. A child who cannot say what happened can still be helped by breath, movement and sound.
That makes body based work useful right across the ages, and for anyone who finds talking hard, including people whose language is not the one the clinic speaks. Keep it playful with children: blowing bubbles, rocking, swinging, humming, a bit of rough and tumble. You are not delivering a treatment. You are giving a body practice at coming back down.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'brought you out of your mothers' wombs knowing nothing, and gave you hearing and sight and minds' (Quran 16:78). The senses come first and the understanding is built afterwards, which is the order this works in too.
وَٱللَّهُ أَخۡرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ شَيۡـࣰٔ ا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمۡعَ وَٱلۡأَبۡصَٰرَ وَٱلۡأَفۡـِٔدَةَ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَشۡكُرُونَ
It is God who brought you out of your mothers’ wombs knowing nothing, and gave you hearing and sight and minds, so that you might be thankful
Qur’an 16:78read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review and meta-analysis of physical activity in preschoolers, children and adolescents found it associated with better mental health, with small pooled effects across a large number of studies. Small and consistent is the honest description. It covers activity in general rather than any of the specific practices above.
Rodriguez-Ayllon M, Cadenas-Sánchez C, Estévez-López F, Muñoz NE, Mora-Gonzalez J, Migueles JH, Molina-García P, Henriksson H, Mena-Molina A, Martínez-Vizcaíno V, Catena A, Löf M, Erickson KI, Lubans DR, Ortega FB, Esteban-Cornejo I. (2019). Role of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in the Mental Health of Preschoolers, Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Regulation is learned through the body, so it does not depend on being able to describe anything.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
If you want to breathe more slowly, add one count at a time over weeks. Four in and four out this month, five next month, and no hurry after that.
If a practice feels like homework you are failing at, turn it into a game. Some feedback tools do this for you, bringing colour and birdsong to a grey screen as your heart rhythm settles.
Connection settles people, but the right amount of it varies enormously. Some settle with a house full of family and some with one person and no talking at all.