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Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
Watching impulses go past is harder to sustain than it sounds once you are stirred up, and a purely mental tally tends to slip away without you noticing. Fingers give you something countable and something to feel, and nobody in the room can see it. When you reach the end of the hand, start again. The count is not the point, the noticing is.
Celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment (Quran 20:130). Small repeated practice is tied to arriving somewhere settled, which is what a hand going round is for.
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 small randomised feasibility trial, a gentle yoga programme was acceptable to women with major depression and reduced both rumination and depressive symptoms. That is body-anchored attention of roughly this family, so it offers mild support for the approach rather than for finger counting in particular. The sample was small and the study was mostly asking whether the thing could be done at all.
Kinser PA, Bourguignon C, Whaley D, Hauenstein E, Taylor AG. (2013). Feasibility, acceptability, and effects of gentle Hatha yoga for women with major depression: findings from a randomized controlled mixed-methods study.. Archives of psychiatric nursing doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A physical marker keeps the noticing going at the exact moment a mental one would quietly stop.
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.
Fear pulls the in breath long. Relief runs the other way and comes out as a sigh, which is your body's own signal that the danger has passed.
Anger is the most physical of the feelings. It goes straight into the muscles, so talking yourself out of it while your arms are already ready to move is hard work.