Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Anger › The moment before you snap
The brake also gets tired. After a long day of holding things in, the same remark lands harder, and that is worth planning around rather than judging yourself for. Where you can, take the difficult conversation earlier in the day, fed and rested, when there is still something in the tank.
Those who restrain their anger and pardon people (Quran 3:134) are described as people who do good. Restraint is named as a quality being built, not a test you either pass or fail once and for all.
آل عمران
ٱلَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ فِي ٱلسَّرَّآءِ وَٱلضَّرَّآءِ وَٱلۡكَٰظِمِينَ ٱلۡغَيۡظَ وَٱلۡعَافِينَ عَنِ ٱلنَّاسِۗ وَٱللَّهُ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ
who give, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and pardon people- God loves those who do good
Qur’an 3:134read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Pooling 83 studies, exerting self-control on one task made people worse at controlling themselves on the next, though later work has questioned the size and robustness of this effect. A re-analysis of the version that blamed low glucose found that evidence statistically weak. So treat the idea that willpower is fuel as a rough picture rather than a fact, and tiredness as one influence among several.
Hagger MS, Wood C, Stiff C, Chatzisarantis NL. (2010). Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: a meta-analysis.. Psychological bulletin doi
Vadillo MA, Gold N, Osman M. (2016). The Bitter Truth About Sugar and Willpower: The Limited Evidential Value of the Glucose Model of Ego Depletion.. Psychological science doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Holding back takes effort, and effort runs low, so the same trigger costs more when you are worn out.
Hold up two hands: one is you, the other is what you are feeling. Ask how far apart they are right now, and you have a quick reading of where you stand.
Learn a new practice in that order: the picture of what it is, then the plain steps, then actually doing it. Knowing what is coming settles most of the resistance before it starts.
Look inside. The moment you catch something going past, put a small dot on the paper and go back to looking. That is the whole exercise, over and over.