1The alarm system in you responds to what your body does more readily than to what you tell it. Sit down, unclench, breathe out slowly, and only then try to reason with yourself.
Reasoning does work, just not at the top of the curve. Wait until the arousal has come down a little, then think about what happened, and you will find that you can. Try it the other way round and you will produce arguments that sound convincing and change nothing.
Islamic evidence
Keep up the prayer: prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour (Quran 29:45). A bodily practice is linked directly to what a person does not end up doing.
“[Prophet], recite what has been revealed to you of the Scripture; keep up the prayer: prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour. Remembering God is greater: God knows everything you are doing”
Qur'an 29:45
Psychological evidence
In a randomised clinical trial, daily slow breathing training altered a brain marker of the arousal system in younger adults, which is fairly direct evidence that breathing reaches the machinery of alarm. A brain marker is not the same as feeling settled, and the trial ran in young adults over a short period. The direction is clear enough to act on.
Bachman SL, Cole S, Yoo HJ, Nashiro K, Min J, Mercer N, Nasseri P, Thayer JF, Lehrer P, Mather M. (2023). International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Signals coming from the body reach the threat system faster than an argument does.
Feedback
none yet2The urge to punch a wall is the body trying to dump a load of energy. Give it somewhere to go that will not cost you a hand or a door.
Telling yourself to stop rarely holds, because the urge is doing a job. Choose the substitute in advance and keep it dull and near to hand: press ups, a heavy bag, carrying something heavy up the stairs, a fast walk to the end of the road. You get the release, nobody is frightened, and nothing needs repairing afterwards.
Islamic evidence
Did We not relieve your heart for you (Quran 94:1). The tightness in the chest is treated as something real that needed lifting, not as a fault to be scolded out of you.
“Did We not relieve your heart for you [Prophet]”
Qur'an 94:1
Psychological evidence
In a randomised controlled trial, self-guided physical activity, mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability biofeedback all reduced stress and improved wellbeing by a similar amount. That is useful here because it suggests the route can follow preference: what matters most is that you will actually reach for it. The participants were adults looking to reduce stress rather than people in the grip of anger.
van der Zwan JE, de Vente W, Huizink AC, Bögels SM, de Bruin EI. (2015). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. A different outlet can do the same physical job as the destructive one, so the need is met and the damage is not done.
When not to. If the urge is towards a person, or you have already hurt someone, this is not something to manage alone: tell someone and get proper help.
Feedback
none yet3Press ups on clenched fists give the hands something close to striking, while the effort and the counting take the story out of it.
The shape of the movement is part of why it satisfies, and the breathing it forces is what stops it being a rehearsal. Count the reps, keep the breath steady, and if you catch yourself narrating the argument between sets, slow the breathing until the narration goes quiet. Ten is usually plenty.
Islamic evidence
Believers, remember God often (Quran 33:41). Short and frequent is the shape being described, which is also what makes a set of press ups a habit you can keep rather than a project.
“Believers, remember God often”
Qur'an 33:41
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials found resistance exercise training reduced depressive symptoms, and the benefit was largely independent of how much strength people actually gained. That points to something in the doing rather than in the result, which is the part that carries over here. It is evidence about mood across weeks, not about settling down in the next five minutes.
Gordon BR, McDowell CP, Hallgren M, Meyer JD, Lyons M, Herring MP. (2018). JAMA psychiatry · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Hard effort burns off the charge while counting and breathing crowd out the angry commentary.
When not to. Skip this if your wrists, shoulders or heart make hard exertion unwise, and take a fast walk instead.
Feedback
none yet4If one sigh helps, take another. Nothing says you have to wait for the hard part to be over first.
Waiting makes the sigh a report on something already finished. Repeating it while you are still in the middle turns it into an intervention instead. Three or four in a row, with ordinary breaths in between, is enough for most people to feel something shift. Stop if you start to go light headed.
Islamic evidence
Wake up and pray, as an extra offering of your own (Quran 17:79). Acting in the middle of the difficult hours, instead of waiting for morning, is the same instinct.
“and dur-ing the night wake up and pray, as an extra offering of your own, so that your Lord may raise you to a [highly] praised status”
Qur'an 17:79
Psychological evidence
In a randomised controlled trial, resonant frequency breathing training reduced stress in thirty six manufacturing operators compared with a control group, in a real workplace rather than a laboratory. That is encouraging for repeated slow breathing in the middle of an actual working day. The sample was small and the setting specific, so it is a promising signal rather than a settled result.
Sutarto AP, Wahab MN, Zin NM. (2012). International journal of occupational safety and ergonomics : JOSE · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Repeating a long out breath is the plain version of the paced breathing protocols, and the repetition is where the effect lives.
When not to. If you start feeling light headed or tingly, return to ordinary breathing for a minute.
Feedback
none yet5For a child who is boiling over: eyes closed, fingers gently over the ears, and a long humming breath out. They can feel the buzzing inside their own head.
Blocking their ears is something an upset child often does already, so you are borrowing a movement their hands know rather than teaching a new one. Closing off sound and sight takes away most of what is winding them up, and the hum stretches the breath without anyone having to explain breathing to a six year old. Do it alongside them rather than instructing from across the room.
Islamic evidence
The night as a cover (Quran 78:10). Darkness is described as something wrapped round you for shelter, which is close to what closed eyes and covered ears give a child who has had too much.
“the night as a cover”
Qur'an 78:10
Psychological evidence
In a small randomised feasibility trial, a gentle yoga programme was acceptable to women with major depression and reduced rumination and depressive symptoms. This practice comes from the same tradition, though the trial was with adults, was small, and was mostly asking whether people would do it at all. For children, treat it as a reasonable thing to offer rather than as something demonstrated.
Kinser PA, Bourguignon C, Whaley D, Hauenstein E, Taylor AG. (2013). Archives of psychiatric nursing · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Less coming in through the eyes and ears, plus a long humming breath out, gives an overloaded child two kinds of relief at once.
When not to. This needs a private spot, so it will not suit a classroom or a shop; and if a child does not want to be shut off from the room, do not press it.
Feedback
none yet6When one thing fills your view, everything around it stops registering. You can be staring hard and taking in almost nothing.
This is why an angry judgement can feel so sharp and turn out to be so poor. The person in front of you has become the whole picture, and the details that would soften or complicate the story are still there, just not being seen. The useful move is not to argue with yourself about them. It is to change what your eyes are doing, and let the rest come back on its own.
Islamic evidence
The daylight so that you can see (Quran 10:67). Light is given so that a whole scene becomes visible, and not only the one thing you were staring at.
“It is He who made the night so that you can rest in it and the daylight so that you can see- there truly are signs in this for those who hear”
Qur'an 10:67
Psychological evidence
Be careful not to promise much here. A meta-analysis of meditation programmes found only small improvements in anxiety, depression and pain when compared with active controls, and no clear benefit for mood, attention, sleep or substance use. Attention practices are worth trying and are not a strong treatment on their own. The account of the narrowed visual field is a description of experience rather than a result from those trials.
Goyal M, Singh S, Sibinga EM, Gould NF, Rowland-Seymour A, Sharma R, Berger Z, Sleicher D, Maron DD, Shihab HM, Ranasinghe PD, Linn S, Saha S, Bass EB, Haythornthwaite JA. (2014). JAMA internal medicine · doi
Review detail
Why it works. What surrounds a thing is what tells you how to read it, and anger is very good at deleting the surroundings.
Feedback
none yet7Find something with nothing in it to look at: sky, a blank wall, a ceiling, a stretch of grass. Do not concentrate on it. Let your attention spread out over it.
Hostile thinking needs something to grip, and it will use whatever the eyes hand it. An expanse with no features gives it nothing, so the replay tends to lose its footing after a minute or so. If you catch yourself picking out a mark on the wall and studying it, you have gone back to concentrating; ease off and let the whole surface be there at once.
Islamic evidence
It is God who has given you the night in which to rest and the day in which to see (Quran 40:61). Seeing is named as a gift alongside rest, and this is a way of using the eyes that rests rather than hunts.
“It is God who has given you the night in which to rest and the day in which to see. God is truly bountiful to people, but most people do not give thanks”
Qur'an 40:61
Psychological evidence
A randomised controlled trial found that self-guided physical activity, mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability biofeedback all reduced stress and improved wellbeing to a similar degree, which suggests the choice between routes can follow preference. Open gazing was not one of the arms, so it has not been shown to work in its own right. Use that finding as permission to pick what suits you rather than as evidence for this one.
van der Zwan JE, de Vente W, Huizink AC, Bögels SM, de Bruin EI. (2015). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Rehearsing a grievance needs something to hold on to, and a blank expanse offers nothing to hold.
Feedback
none yet8If techniques and explanations are not for you, carry a bottle of water and drink it down whenever you feel yourself going up. That is the whole method.
Some people want something to do, not something to understand, and that is a perfectly reasonable way to be. A bottle in your bag or your van is a reminder you do not have to remember, and finishing it gives the episode a definite end rather than leaving it trailing. Refill it afterwards and you are set up for the next time.
Islamic evidence
He sent down water from the sky to cleanse you, to make your hearts strong and your feet firm (Quran 8:11). Frightened people are described as being settled through something as plain as water, which is about the size of this suggestion.
“Remember when He gave you sleep as a reassurance from Him, and sent down water from the sky to cleanse you, to remove Satan’s pollution from you, to make your hearts strong and your feet firm”
Qur'an 8:11
Psychological evidence
Plain behavioural changes can carry real weight. In a small randomised controlled trial, inactive adults with insomnia who simply reached standard public health activity levels improved their sleep quality and mood, with no complicated programme involved. The trial had forty one participants and was about activity rather than water, so read it as support for keeping the instruction simple rather than as evidence for the bottle.
Hartescu I, Morgan K, Stevinson CD. (2015). Journal of sleep research · doi
Review detail
Why it works. An object you carry does the remembering for you, at the moment when remembering is the thing you cannot do.