1Slow your out breath. The threat system reads the state of your blood as well as the state of the room, so changing how you breathe changes something it is genuinely listening to.
Make the out breath longer than the in breath, roughly six breaths a minute, for two or three minutes. It is dull, and dull is the point, because you want something you can still do with no cleverness left. Practise it while calm so your body knows the rhythm when you are not.
Islamic evidence
Celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment (Quran 20:130). Contentment is tied to a rhythm kept steadily, not to something summoned only in the crisis.
“so [Prophet] be patient with what they say- celebrate the praise of your Lord, before the rising and setting of the sun, celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment”
Qur'an 20:130
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis of randomised studies of heart rate variability biofeedback, which trains slow breathing at a person's own resonance frequency, found moderate improvements in anxiety, depression and performance measures. That is decent evidence for slow breathing as a regular practice. It is not a demonstration that a few breaths will halt an outburst in progress.
Lehrer P, Kaur K, Sharma A, Shah K, Huseby R, Bhavsar J, Sgobba P, Zhang Y. (2020). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Slow breathing changes the body signals the alarm system is reading, so the alarm quietens.
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none yet2Anger often grows after the moment that started it, with nothing new added. The system amplifies its own signal, insisting that this is big, pay attention, react.
That is how you can leave a conversation at a five and reach an eight by the time you get to the car. Knowing it climbs on its own lets you plan for the climb rather than be ambushed by it. Leave earlier than feels necessary, and give the body something to do: breathing out for longer than you breathe in is unglamorous and it works better than arguing with yourself.
Islamic evidence
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer (Quran 2:45). The help named here is practical, and the body is not left out of it.
“Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble”
Qur'an 2:45
Psychological evidence
A meta analysis of randomised studies found that training people to breathe slowly at their own resonant rate produced moderate improvements in anxiety, depression and performance measures. The effect sits on the body's regulation rather than on the argument you are having. Most of those trials involved repeated practice sessions, so this works better as something already rehearsed than as a rescue you try for the first time mid row.
Lehrer P, Kaur K, Sharma A, Shah K, Huseby R, Bhavsar J, Sgobba P, Zhang Y. (2020). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Slowing the breath gives the body evidence that the emergency is over, which is what the alarm is listening for.
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none yet3There is a stretch after anger fires when a person is feeling rather than thinking. In it, only information that matches the emotion gets through, so reasoning at yourself or at anyone else is wasted breath.
What does land in that stretch is physical and relational: a slower breath, a change of room, a hand on your own chest, a kind tone that asks for nothing. Save the sensible conversation for after the wave has passed. And do not read the failure of logic in those minutes as proof that the other person did not want to hear you.
Islamic evidence
He would have succumbed to her if he had not seen evidence of his Lord (Quran 12:24). What interrupted that moment was something seen, not a case argued.
“She made for him, and he would have succumbed to her if he had not seen evidence of his Lord- We did this in order to keep evil and indecency away from him, for he was truly one of Our chosen servants”
Qur'an 12:24
Psychological evidence
In a brain stimulation experiment, disrupting a region involved in holding back impulses increased both impulsive movement and retaliation after provocation, supporting the idea of a narrow window in which control is genuinely available. Where that capacity is compromised, argument is no substitute for it. It was a small laboratory study of one brain region rather than a picture of a real conflict.
Dambacher F, Sack AT, Lobbestael J, Arntz A, Brugman S, Schuhmann T. (2015). Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · doi
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Why it works. While the alarm is running, the parts of you that weigh an argument are not the parts in charge.
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none yet4You can sit on a bench a few feet from a waterfall and be perfectly safe. Step in and you go over. Feeling something powerful is not the danger, and getting swept into it is.
This is why the aim is never to keep away from what upsets you. You can be right up close to a feeling, hearing it roar, and still be the one on the bench. What changes everything is whether you are watching the water or in it. If you notice you are already in, the way back is physical: your feet, your breath, the chair under you.
Islamic evidence
For anyone who feared the meeting with his Lord and restrained himself from base desires (Quran 79:40). Restraint here is the decisive act, and restraint assumes the pull is being felt rather than avoided.
“for anyone who feared the meeting with his Lord and restrained himself from base desires”
Qur'an 79:40
Psychological evidence
A meta analysis of randomised studies found that training people to breathe slowly at their own resonant rate produced moderate improvements in anxiety, depression and performance measures. Working with the body's arousal rather than fighting the content is a real route. These were mostly programmes of repeated practice, so the benefit belongs to rehearsal rather than to a single attempt in a crisis.
Lehrer P, Kaur K, Sharma A, Shah K, Huseby R, Bhavsar J, Sgobba P, Zhang Y. (2020). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Being near a strong feeling without being carried by it is what teaches you that it can be survived.
When not to. If sitting with the feeling tips you into panic or into memories of something traumatic, get alongside a professional before doing more of it.
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none yet5If you finish and say you managed to calm your mind down first, something has quietly slipped. You are not cleaning the water or blocking the flow, you are only sitting beside it.
This matters because a practice built on making yourself calm works fine on an easy evening and collapses on the night you need it. Let the river be as fast and as filthy as it is. The skill you are after is being able to sit there while it rages, since that is the only condition under which anger ever actually turns up.
Islamic evidence
When Moses' anger abated, he picked up the Tablets (Quran 7:154). The anger abated in its own time, and the good action came after, not by forcing the feeling to stop first.
“When Moses’ anger abated, he picked up the Tablets, on which were inscribed guidance and mercy for those who stood in awe of their Lord”
Qur'an 7:154
Psychological evidence
The best known meta analysis of self control pooled 83 studies and found that exerting control on one task left people worse at controlling themselves on the next, although later work has questioned how big and how robust that effect really is. Effortful control looks costly, which is a reason not to build your main practice on forcing a state. The questions raised about that literature mean this is a caution rather than a settled law.
Hagger MS, Wood C, Stiff C, Chatzisarantis NL. (2010). Psychological bulletin · doi
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Why it works. A practice that depends on the water being calm has nothing to offer when the water is not.
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none yet6Trying to control what cannot be controlled is what makes a person feel out of control. Let the uncontrollable part be, and a surprising amount of control comes back.
Balance something on your fingertip and you will feel it: the harder you chase it, the more it wobbles. Feelings and thoughts behave the same way. You do not get to choose what arrives, and you do get to choose what you do next, which is a smaller offer than most people want and a real one. Most of the exhausting struggle sits in the part that was never yours to run.
Islamic evidence
I seek refuge with you, Lord, so that they may not come near me (Quran 23:98). The request hands something over rather than gripping it, which is a different posture from trying to master it alone.
“I seek refuge with you, Lord, so that they may not come near me.’”
Qur'an 23:98
Psychological evidence
In a randomised controlled trial with forensic psychiatric patients, acceptance based anger management training reduced anger rumination and impulsivity compared with a control group. Practice aimed at allowing feelings rather than suppressing them changed both the dwelling and the acting. It was a single site trial with a modest sample in a very particular setting, so how far the size of the benefit travels is unknown.
Polat H, Asi Karakaş S. (2021). Perspectives in psychiatric care · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Effort spent on what will not obey you is effort taken from what will.
Feedback
none yet7If watching your mind feels too open, rest your attention on your breathing instead. Do not deepen it or slow it down. Just feel the breath you are already taking.
Managing the breath turns it into one more thing to get right, and for some people close attention to the body winds them up rather than settling them. As an anchor it works differently. The mind wanders off, you notice, you come back. The coming back is the practice, not the staying.
Islamic evidence
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer (Quran 2:45). What steadies a person is something regular and undramatic to return to, rather than one heroic effort.
“Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble”
Qur'an 2:45
Psychological evidence
Across randomised studies, training people to breathe slowly at their own resonance rate, with feedback, produced moderate improvements in anxiety, low mood and performance measures. So deliberate breathing does have evidence behind it. It is a different practice from this one, where the breath is only somewhere to rest attention, and that use has not been tested in those trials.
Lehrer P, Kaur K, Sharma A, Shah K, Huseby R, Bhavsar J, Sgobba P, Zhang Y. (2020). Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Having somewhere plain to return to makes a wandering mind much easier to notice than watching an empty field.
When not to. If focusing on your breathing makes you panicky, which happens to plenty of people, use an outside anchor such as sound instead.
Feedback
none yet8There is a kind of mindfulness that means sinking right into a moment, and another that means stepping back from it. When you are angry, you want the second one.
Losing yourself in the taste of a coffee is a lovely practice and it is not this one. Going all the way into a feeling makes it bigger, which is welcome for pleasure and unhelpful when your chest is tight and you are rehearsing what to say. Here you want the small distance instead: this is anger, it is here, I am watching it move.
Islamic evidence
who restrain their anger and pardon people (Quran 3:134). What is praised is restraint while the anger is present, which is a different thing from not feeling it.
“who give, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and pardon people- God loves those who do good”
Qur'an 3:134
Psychological evidence
In a laboratory task with 69 couples, aggression was highest where dwelling on the provocation was high, reinterpreting it was low, and alcohol was involved, and those factors combined rather than acting one at a time. Sinking further into the feeling sits on the wrong side of that picture. It was a laboratory measure of aggression in a small sample, not behaviour observed at home.
Watkins LE, DiLillo D, Maldonado RC. (2015). Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · doi
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Why it works. Getting closer to a feeling turns the volume up, and with anger the volume is the problem.
Feedback
none yet9You did not calm yourself down. You sat still and watched, and calm turned up. It is worth having that the right way round.
If you credit your own effort for the calm, you will reach for that effort next time you are furious, and it will not be there. Then the failure feels personal, on top of the anger. What you are practising is the stopping and the watching. The settling is a by product and it arrives on its own schedule.
Islamic evidence
When Moses' anger abated, he picked up the Tablets (Quran 7:154). The anger subsided and then he acted, in that order.
“When Moses’ anger abated, he picked up the Tablets, on which were inscribed guidance and mercy for those who stood in awe of their Lord”
Qur'an 7:154
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis pooling 83 studies found that effortful self control on one task left people worse at controlling themselves on the next, although later work has questioned how large and how reliable that effect really is. Either way, forcing calm out of yourself looks like an expensive way to get it. The size of the effect is genuinely unsettled, so hold the willpower as fuel picture lightly.
Hagger MS, Wood C, Stiff C, Chatzisarantis NL. (2010). Psychological bulletin · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Trying hard to feel calm is another way of wrestling with the feeling, which keeps it going.
Feedback
none yet10Most of us think there are two things to do with anger: hold it in or let it out. There is a third, which is to stop, stay still, and watch it without doing either.
Holding it in has you clamped shut and seething. Letting it out has you saying things you will be repairing for weeks. The third one feels like doing nothing and is not: you are awake, you are watching, you are simply not moving yet. Most people have never been shown that it exists, which is why they keep choosing between the two that do not work.
Islamic evidence
repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend (Quran 41:34). Something better than both silence and retaliation is named as available, not merely wished for.
“Good and evil cannot be equal. [Prophet], repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend”
Qur'an 41:34
Psychological evidence
Laboratory experiments found that bringing an anger provoking memory to mind was not itself the problem. Chewing it over kept the anger going and pushed blood pressure up, while reinterpreting the same memory brought both down. That is two quite different things to do with the same material, and neither is pushing it away. These were brief studies using recalled events rather than live arguments.
Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ. (2008). Journal of personality and social psychology · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Watching a feeling gives it somewhere to go that is neither pushed down nor acted out.