Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
You do not need other people to reach a settled state. Breath, a slow walk somewhere green, a cat asleep on your lap: all of them get you there.
The name social engagement system makes it sound as though company is the only door, which is bleak if you are isolated, and worse if people are the very thing your body reads as dangerous. It is not the only door. Start wherever it is easiest for you and let human company come later, or in small amounts, rather than treating it as the entry requirement.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God 'spread out the earth for you and built the sky' (Quran 2:22). The world is described as laid out on your behalf, and it is allowed to be where you go for relief.
ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ فِرَٰشࣰ ا وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بِنَآءࣰ وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءࣰ فَأَخۡرَجَ بِهِۦ مِنَ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ رِزۡقࣰ ا لَّكُمۡۖ فَلَا تَجۡعَلُواْ لِلَّهِ أَندَادࣰ ا وَأَنتُمۡ تَعۡلَمُونَ
who spread out the earth for you and built the sky; who sent water down from it and with that water produced things for your sustenance. Do not, knowing this, set up rivals to God
Qur’an 2:22read 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 greenspace exposure found it associated with reduced salivary cortisol, heart rate and diastolic blood pressure among a long list of health outcomes. Being somewhere green does something measurable to autonomic state with nobody else needing to be present. Much of that evidence is observational, so the size of the effect for any one person is uncertain.
Twohig-Bennett C, Jones A. (2018). The health benefits of the great outdoors: A systematic review and meta-analysis of greenspace exposure and health outcomes.. Environmental research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
What settles you is the signal that nothing needs guarding, and a place or an animal can send that signal as well as a person can.
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
A gut feeling is a real signal rather than a turn of phrase. The chemicals that carry emotion in your brain are also at work in your heart and your gut.
Cold water on your face, particularly at the hairline and around the lips, sets off a reflex that slows the heart. It is one of the few things fast enough to interrupt real panic.
When you are far from settled, aim for the next step rather than for calm. Rattled is a real improvement on numb.