Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
Closed eyes are optional. If closing them makes you anxious, or the inside of your head gets loud, open them and look around the room.
Name a few things you can see, listen for the furthest sound you can hear, notice any smell in the air. Looking outward like this is a way of checking with your own senses that you are here and it is now. Decide this before you begin rather than trying to work it out halfway through, and say the permission out loud if that helps you use it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'It is God who has given you a place of rest in your homes' (Quran 16:80), and the verse goes on to name furnishings and comfort. Letting your eyes land on the ordinary things around you takes that provision at its word.
وَٱللَّهُ جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنۢ بُيُوتِكُمۡ سَكَنࣰ ا وَجَعَلَ لَكُم مِّن جُلُودِ ٱلۡأَنۡعَٰمِ بُيُوتࣰ ا تَسۡتَخِفُّونَهَا يَوۡمَ ظَعۡنِكُمۡ وَيَوۡمَ إِقَامَتِكُمۡ وَمِنۡ أَصۡوَافِهَا وَأَوۡبَارِهَا وَأَشۡعَارِهَآ أَثَٰثࣰ ا وَمَتَٰعًا إِلَىٰ حِينࣲ
It is God who has given you a place of rest in your homes and from the skins of animals made you homes that you find light [to handle] when you travel and when you set up camp; furnishings and comfort for a while from their wool, fur, and hair
Qur’an 16:80read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A Cochrane review of ways to improve sleep in people with chronic kidney disease, covering acupressure and relaxation among other things, concluded the evidence was too sparse and too low in certainty to draw conclusions. That is a fair picture of much of this territory: reasonable to try, nowhere near established. Which is one more reason not to push on through a version of a practice that frightens you.
Natale P, Ruospo M, Saglimbene VM, Palmer SC, Strippoli GF. (2019). Interventions for improving sleep quality in people with chronic kidney disease.. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Looking around confirms where you actually are, which interrupts a slide back into somewhere older.
When not to
If opening your eyes does not bring you back, or you regularly lose time during body practices, do this work with a trauma trained therapist rather than alone.
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
Let something out of your throat. A sigh, a groan, a hum, or the word for whatever is stuck, said aloud to an empty room.
There is a route the calming nerve takes through you: eyes, then jaw and mouth, then throat and neck, then shoulders and chest, then belly. You can visit each stop in turn and simply notice what is there.
You choose what to work on and how big a piece of it. A sore shoulder, a low mood, the belief that you are too much: all of them are allowed, and so is starting small.