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Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
Big claims about a mechanism fall apart the first time the method does not work, and then the method goes in the bin along with the claim. Say plainly what it does: it gives you something steady to hold while the surge passes. Pair it with a few minutes of proper slowing down, so the cue has somewhere to point back to.
Remember your Lord inwardly, in all humility and awe, without raising your voice (Quran 7:205). A quiet inward practice is not a lesser one, and it does not need dressing up.
الأعراف
وَٱذۡكُر رَّبَّكَ فِي نَفۡسِكَ تَضَرُّعࣰ ا وَخِيفَةࣰ وَدُونَ ٱلۡجَهۡرِ مِنَ ٱلۡقَوۡلِ بِٱلۡغُدُوِّ وَٱلۡأٓصَالِ وَلَا تَكُن مِّنَ ٱلۡغَٰفِلِينَ
[Prophet], remember your Lord inwardly, in all humility and awe, without raising your voice, in the mornings and in the evenings- do not be one of the heedless
Qur’an 7:205read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of meditation programmes tested against active control groups found small improvements in anxiety, depression and pain, and no clear benefit for mood, attention, sleep or substance use. Practices like these are worth doing and are also routinely oversold. Describing yours modestly leaves it standing on the days when the grand version would not.
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). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis.. JAMA internal medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A cue works because it has been linked to a calm state often enough, not because of anything special in the thing itself.
Trace a slow circle with your finger, on your knee or in the air, once a day. One a day is the whole prescription, which is why it survives contact with real life.
If breathing exercises have felt insulting to you in the past, it may be that they arrived too early. They tend to land once you can already feel the anger coming.
The out breath is the part that quiets things down. Cells in the brain's alarm centres behave differently across the two phases of a breath, and breathing out is the calming side of that cycle.