Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
On a video call, two things still work well: touching your own face gently, and rocking. Both are yours to do, and both are visible enough to be done together.
Distance takes away most of what one person can offer another physically, so it helps to know what survives it. A hand resting on your cheek, fingers along the jaw, a slow sway in the chair. If you are supporting someone from far away, do it alongside them rather than instructing them, and say plainly that they can stop whenever they want to.
Qur’an and Sunnah
if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me (Quran 2:186). Nearness here does not depend on distance, which is worth holding when the only help available is through a screen.
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌۖ أُجِيبُ دَعۡوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِۖ فَلۡيَسۡتَجِيبُواْ لِي وَلۡيُؤۡمِنُواْ بِي لَعَلَّهُمۡ يَرۡشُدُونَ
[Prophet], if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided
Qur’an 2:186read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a controlled neuroimaging study, a short focused attention exercise in people new to it already engaged the networks used for controlling attention. That supports the idea that a first brief self led practice does something real, rather than needing weeks before it counts. It says nothing specific about video calls or about touch.
Dickenson J, Berkman ET, Arch J, Lieberman MD. (2013). Neural correlates of focused attention during a brief mindfulness induction.. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Using your own hands on yourself gives you back a sense of your body when nobody else can reach you.
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
The benefit of a settling practice is cumulative. A fortnight of it now and then does little; the people who get most out of it are the ones who kept going for years.
Before you try anything, give your distress a number out of ten. Do the thing. Then give it a number again.
Before you walk into a room with someone, ask what you are carrying in with you, and what you are likely to leave behind when you go.