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Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
After a lot of talk about how fast the alarm system is, the other half deserves saying plainly. People do learn to sit through a surge without acting on it. It is slow, unremarkable work that never once feels like a breakthrough, and the capacity it builds is real.
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 sits at the end of a repeated practice rather than at the start of it.
طه
فَٱصۡبِرۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ وَسَبِّحۡ بِحَمۡدِ رَبِّكَ قَبۡلَ طُلُوعِ ٱلشَّمۡسِ وَقَبۡلَ غُرُوبِهَاۖ وَمِنۡ ءَانَآيِٕ ٱلَّيۡلِ فَسَبِّحۡ وَأَطۡرَافَ ٱلنَّهَارِ لَعَلَّكَ تَرۡضَىٰ
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 20:130read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised controlled trial, 106 young adults who did five weeks of daily slow breathing practice showed changes in how emotion related brain regions worked together. Brain measures are not the same as feeling steadier in an argument, and five weeks is a short window. It does show a plain daily body practice reaching the systems involved in regulating feeling.
Nashiro K, Min J, Yoo HJ, Cho C, Bachman SL, Dutt S, Thayer JF, Lehrer PM, Feng T, Mercer N, Nasseri P, Wang D, Chang C, Marmarelis VZ, Narayanan S, Nation DA, Mather M. (2023). Increasing coordination and responsivity of emotion-related brain regions with a heart rate variability biofeedback randomized trial.. Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Practice changes what the body does by default, which is what makes the next surge easier to sit through.
Movement can settle you or wind you further up, and the difference is mostly what your mind is doing while you move.
Clench your fist a few times, then open it a different way each time: fingers first, thumb last, slowly, all at once. The second half is the harder half, and it is the whole exercise.
Counting to ten asks you to keep track of numbers at the exact moment you cannot keep track of anything. Breathe out slowly instead and let the breath do the delaying.