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Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
It is the same hand doing nearly the same thing, so there is nothing new to learn at the worst possible moment. People often describe a small opening feeling as the fingers spread, and that feeling is worth noticing, because it becomes the marker you can find again later. Rest the hand on your knee and hold it for a few breaths.
Remembrance is named for the body in every position: standing, sitting, and lying on your sides (Quran 4:103). The body's shape is part of the practice, not a detail arranged around it.
النساء
فَإِذَا قَضَيۡتُمُ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ فَٱذۡكُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ قِيَٰمࣰ ا وَقُعُودࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِكُمۡۚ فَإِذَا ٱطۡمَأۡنَنتُمۡ فَأَقِيمُواْ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَۚ إِنَّ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ كَانَتۡ عَلَى ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ كِتَٰبࣰ ا مَّوۡقُوتࣰ ا
After performing the ritual prayer, continue to remember God- standing, sitting, and lying on your sides- and once you are safe, keep up regular prayer, for prayer is obligatory for the believers at prescribed times
Qur’an 4:103read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The nearest studied relative is tai chi, where a review found reduced stress, anxiety and depression and better mood, while noting that the trials included were mostly of low methodological quality. A single hand gesture has not been tested at all. What can honestly be said is that slow deliberate movement practices look helpful, and this one costs nothing to try.
Wang C, Bannuru R, Ramel J, Kupelnick B, Scott T, Schmid CH. (2010). Tai Chi on psychological well-being: systematic review and meta-analysis.. BMC complementary and alternative medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Finishing a movement the angry hand has already begun is far easier than starting a calm one from nothing.
If you feel yourself rising, sit down. It is the smallest instruction in the whole toolkit and often the one that works.
Anger pulls your attention towards whatever provoked it, the way a vacuum cleaner pulls at a curtain. Naming it that way makes it something happening to you rather than something wrong with you.
People who train regularly seem to be set off less easily, not because they care less but because a fitter body reads fewer situations as emergencies.