Areas › Your body › Posture and how you carry yourself
Calm is only half the training. Plenty of people are more frightened of stillness than of adrenaline, because stillness puts the guard down.
If everything you practise is a settling practice, half the range goes untrained, and you may be asking someone to drop a defence they still need. So work in both directions: things that raise energy, things that lower it, and the deliberate move between the two. Begin with whichever is less frightening and spend a short while at the edge of the other, then come back.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Those who spend the night bowed down or standing (Quran 25:64). A whole practice is described here by two different positions rather than one.
وَٱلَّذِينَ يَبِيتُونَ لِرَبِّهِمۡ سُجَّدࣰ ا وَقِيَٰمࣰ ا
those who spend the night bowed down or standing, worshipping their Lord
Qur’an 25:64read 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 tai chi across eastern and western populations found consistent improvements in depression, anxiety and psychological wellbeing. Tai chi happens to contain both rousing and quietening phases, which is suggestive rather than proof, because the trials tested the practice whole. I know of no trial that trained tolerance of rest and tolerance of activation separately and compared them.
Wang F, Lee EK, Wu T, Benson H, Fricchione G, Wang W, Yeung AS. (2014). The effects of tai chi on depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis.. International journal of behavioral medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
What you want is a range you can move around inside, not one safe spot to hide in.
When not to
For someone highly vigilant, deep relaxation can itself feel like danger, so approach rest in small amounts and with support nearby.
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
You are not here for a longer hamstring. You are here for a nervous system that can change gear, work when work is needed and settle when it is not.
Find the place that is always tight, your jaw, your shoulders, the top of your back. Take it over deliberately. Squeeze it harder than it holds itself, then let it go.
Once a shape feels safe, it becomes somewhere to explore from. The question stops being am I doing this right and turns into how does my body want to move now.