1Anger numbs. If it is doing the work of a painkiller for you, it will be hard to put down while the pain underneath is still untreated.
Ask what tends to be there in the half hour before you flare: a bit of shame, feeling small, an old fear about being left. The anger often arrives to stop you feeling that. Tending to the ache underneath does more for a temper than any amount of discipline aimed at the temper itself.
Islamic evidence
Did We not relieve your heart for you (Quran 94:1). The pressure in the chest is spoken to directly, which is a gentler place to start from than blaming yourself for the temper.
“Did We not relieve your heart for you [Prophet]”
Qur'an 94:1
Psychological evidence
In a small controlled study of people with depersonalisation, physiological arousal was blunted, and deliberately raising it with biofeedback reduced the feelings of numbness and disembodiment. That is a different condition, a small sample, and not a study of anger at all. It is here only as a reminder that numbing is a physiological event rather than a character flaw.
Schoenberg PL, Sierra M, David AS. (2012). Journal of trauma & dissociation : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD) · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Nothing gets given up while it is still the only thing making the pain bearable.
When not to. If what sits under the anger is trauma or a loss you have never been able to look at, that is work to do with someone alongside you.
Feedback
none yet2If the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.
Irritability is part of depression, and it belongs to the mixed and elevated states of bipolar disorder too. Anger skills are still worth having, and on their own they will not do much if what is driving the anger is a mood that needs treating. The clue is usually timing: a temper that arrived with a whole change in sleep, energy and outlook is a different thing from one that has always been there.
Islamic evidence
Give you sleep for rest (Quran 78:9). Sleep is named as a provision, so when it stops doing its work that is worth taking seriously rather than pushing through.
“give you sleep for rest”
Qur'an 78:9
Psychological evidence
In a randomised controlled trial with Latino adults who had both asthma and panic disorder, a culturally adapted programme that treated both together, combining CBT with heart rate variability biofeedback, did better than music and relaxation therapy. It is a different pair of conditions, so the specifics do not carry over. The principle does: where two things sit on top of each other, treating both deliberately beat treating around them.
Feldman JM, Matte L, Interian A, Lehrer PM, Lu SE, Scheckner B, Steinberg DM, Oken T, Kotay A, Sinha S, Shim C. (2016). Behaviour research and therapy · doi
Review detail
Why it works. You cannot skill your way out of a symptom that has a different cause.
When not to. If your mood has shifted markedly, or there are thoughts of harming yourself, that needs a doctor now rather than a self care practice.