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Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
The comeback composed in the shower, the retelling to a friend that gets a little sharper each time, the pillow taking a beating: all of it keeps the body switched on and the story alive. This is not an argument for swallowing things. It is an argument that discharge and relief are not the same, and that what settles anger is looking at it differently rather than performing it again.
Who restrain their anger and pardon people (Quran 3:134). Restraint here is not pretending you are not angry, it is what you do with the anger once it is already there.
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.
Laboratory work found that simply recalling an anger provoking event was not itself the problem. Going over it kept the anger going and raised blood pressure, while rethinking the same memory brought both down. A separate experiment with 516 social drinkers found alcohol raised aggression mainly among those who dwelt on the provocation, which suggests the dwelling is the active ingredient.
Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ. (2008). All in the mind's eye? Anger rumination and reappraisal.. Journal of personality and social psychology doi
Borders A, Giancola PR. (2011). Trait and state hostile rumination facilitate alcohol-related aggression.. Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Whatever you rehearse you get better at, including being angry.
Holding back an outburst is not the same as ignoring a real wrong, and if something needs saying it still needs saying, later and more plainly.
Emotions are loud on purpose. The intensity is your system saying that something here matters, so the question worth asking is what it thinks is at stake.
For most people anger is weather that passes. For some it is closer to climate: quicker to arrive, bigger when it lands, slower to leave.
Sometimes the row is not really about the row. Some people reach for conflict because it is the one thing that makes them feel properly awake.