Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
To come down, move slowly and rhythmically: rock, sway, walk at half speed. To come up, move properly: jog on the spot, jump, dance fast, or carry something heavy.
Heavy work is the interesting one, because it settles as well as it lifts. Carrying the shopping in one trip, shifting furniture, pushing hard against a wall, all give the body a large dose of honest effort, and a body that has done real work usually stops arguing. Start with less than you think and stop while it still feels good.
Qur’an and Sunnah
It is He who has made the earth manageable for you (Quran 67:15). Moving through the world is taken as the ordinary way of living in it, so using your body to settle is in keeping rather than a distraction.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ ذَلُولࣰ ا فَٱمۡشُواْ فِي مَنَاكِبِهَا وَكُلُواْ مِن رِّزۡقِهِۦۖ وَإِلَيۡهِ ٱلنُّشُورُ
It is He who has made the earth manageable for you––travel its regions; eat His provision- and to Him you will be resurrected
Qur’an 67:15read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of 47 trials of meditation programmes found small but consistent improvements in anxiety, depression and pain, and no evidence that meditation did better than other active approaches, exercise among them. That is worth knowing if sitting still has never suited you. Moving is not the lesser option people sometimes assume it is.
Goyal M, Singh S, Sibinga EM, Gould NF, Rowland-Seymour A, Sharma R, Berger Z, Sleicher D, Maron DD, Shihab HM, Ranasinghe PD, Linn S, Saha S, Bass EB, Haythornthwaite JA. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis.. JAMA internal medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Movement spends what fear has already put into your muscles, rather than asking you to sit still with it.
When not to
Take any injury or physical limit as real and pick the smallest version that still counts.
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
Walk somewhere at a deliberately slower pace than normal. Stop now and then to look at something properly, and let your breathing settle into the pace.
Your settling kit should cost nothing. Tea you already buy, a photo already on your phone, an old jumper, a smooth stone, a puzzle that takes your whole attention.
Breathe in, hold it a moment, then let it out as a sigh you can actually hear. Not a polite one.