Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
When you have gone flat and far away, chew something noisy or blow something: pretzels, raw carrot, bubbles, a slow puff at a candle flame. It lifts you without tipping you into panic.
Collapse does not respond to calming, since you are already too far down for that. What helps is work for the jaw and a long active out breath, both of which ask a little effort from you. Keep it short, half a minute or so, then check where you have got to before deciding whether to do more.
Qur’an and Sunnah
when the earth, for all its spaciousness, closed in around them, when their very souls closed in around them (Quran 9:118). The shut in feeling is named exactly, and the verse ends with mercy turning towards them rather than leaving them there.
وَعَلَى ٱلثَّلَٰثَةِ ٱلَّذِينَ خُلِّفُواْ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا ضَاقَتۡ عَلَيۡهِمُ ٱلۡأَرۡضُ بِمَا رَحُبَتۡ وَضَاقَتۡ عَلَيۡهِمۡ أَنفُسُهُمۡ وَظَنُّوٓاْ أَن لَّا مَلۡجَأَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّآ إِلَيۡهِ ثُمَّ تَابَ عَلَيۡهِمۡ لِيَتُوبُوٓاْۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ ٱلتَّوَّابُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
And to the three men who stayed behind: when the earth, for all its spaciousness, closed in around them, when their very souls closed in around them, when they realized that the only refuge from God was with Him, He turned to them in mercy in order for them to return [to Him]. God is the Ever Relenting, the Most Merciful
Qur’an 9:118read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An integrative review of heart rate variability describes it as a marker of how flexibly the body adapts to challenge, and sets out how closely breathing pattern and heart rhythm are tied. It is background rather than a test of this practice, since nobody has run a trial on eating pretzels. Treat the breathing half as reasonably grounded and the rest as sensible improvisation.
Shaffer F, McCraty R, Zerr CL. (2014). A healthy heart is not a metronome: an integrative review of the heart's anatomy and heart rate variability.. Frontiers in psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Chewing and blowing both take effort, and effort is what brings a shut down body back up a step.
When not to
If you feel light headed, stop the blowing and simply sit with your feet flat on the floor.
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
Instead of breathing deeply in general, pick the place that feels tight, the front of the ribs, the chest, one shoulder, and send the breath there.
Picture something that could hold what you cannot deal with today. A box, a safe, a chest with a lid. You choose the size, what it is made of and where it is kept.
Breathe in, hold it a moment, then let it out as a sigh you can actually hear. Not a polite one.