1The old angry route does not get deleted. What you are building is a rival route beside it, and at the start the new one is small.
Expect the old path to show up when you are tired, ill or caught off guard, because it is still there and it is well worn. That is not proof the work has failed. It is the ordinary shape of learning something over the top of something older, which is also why the practice carries on after you feel better.
Islamic evidence
God does not let the rewards of those who do good go to waste (Quran 11:115). Worth having on the day the old temper returns and it feels as though nothing you did counted.
“Be steadfast: God does not let the rewards of those who do good go to waste”
Qur'an 11:115
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduced relapse in people with recurrent depression, and the programme is built around people continuing the practice themselves. The evidence is for relapse prevention in depression rather than anger, and it says nothing directly about brain tissue. What carries across is the design: the thing you keep doing is what holds the gain.
Piet J, Hougaard E. (2011). Clinical psychology review · doi
Review detail
Why it works. New learning sits alongside the old habit rather than wiping it, so it stays strong only by being used.
Feedback
none yet2If you held back at four o'clock and then snapped at seven, the holding back still happened. A later slip does not reach backwards and cancel it.
All or nothing scoring is the quickest route from one lapse to giving the whole thing up: I lost it, so none of it was working, so why bother. Count the other way instead, and treat each success as a precedent that stands on its own. You now have proof you can do it, which you did not have yesterday.
Islamic evidence
Whenever you forget, remember your Lord and say, 'May my Lord guide me closer to what is right' (Quran 18:24). Forgetting is assumed, and the way back is written into the instruction.
“without adding, ‘God willing,’ and, whenever you forget, remember your Lord and say, ‘May my Lord guide me closer to what is right.’”
Qur'an 18:24
Psychological evidence
Cochrane reviewers have looked repeatedly at programmes designed to stop people returning to smoking after they quit, and the most recent update still found limited evidence that these specific additions help. Slipping and starting again is the ordinary picture, even with support in place. That is smoking rather than anger, and it argues for expecting lapses rather than for any particular way of handling them.
Livingstone-Banks J, Norris E, Hartmann-Boyce J, West R, Jarvis M, Hajek P. (2019). The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · doi
Review detail
Why it works. A slip only becomes a collapse if you decide it wiped out everything before it.