Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Online you can edit, delete, mute and leave. People who have done most of their socialising that way often find ordinary company unbearable, because ordinary company cannot be controlled.
If that describes you, the answer is not to become a different sort of person. It is practice in rooms you cannot manage: a class, a job with shifts, a family meal that runs long. Expect it to be uncomfortable, and expect the discomfort to come down with repetition rather than with insight. What is going on afterwards matters too, since replaying the awkward bit for an hour undoes most of the benefit of having stayed.
Qur’an and Sunnah
prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour (Quran 29:45). A steady practice is credited with holding the reaction, which is the part you can build.
ٱتۡلُ مَآ أُوحِيَ إِلَيۡكَ مِنَ ٱلۡكِتَٰبِ وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَۖ إِنَّ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ تَنۡهَىٰ عَنِ ٱلۡفَحۡشَآءِ وَٱلۡمُنكَرِۗ وَلَذِكۡرُ ٱللَّهِ أَكۡبَرُۗ وَٱللَّهُ يَعۡلَمُ مَا تَصۡنَعُونَ
[Prophet], recite what has been revealed to you of the Scripture; keep up the prayer: prayer restrains outrageous and unacceptable behaviour. Remembering God is greater: God knows everything you are doing
Qur’an 29:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An observational study using multilevel analysis found that both a person's general mindfulness and their state in the moment predicted less aggressive behaviour, and that reduced rumination about anger accounted for part of that link. What happens after a frustrating exchange, in the going over, seems to matter as much as the exchange. The design was observational, so it maps relationships rather than showing what causes what.
Eisenlohr-Moul TA, Peters JR, Pond RS, DeWall CN. (2016). Both trait and state mindfulness predict lower aggressiveness via anger rumination: A multilevel mediation analysis.. Mindfulness doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
An expectation that other people can be controlled only changes by spending time where they cannot be.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Sourness, shutting down, snapping at everyone: these are as often worry as they are attitude. The person is not giving you a hard time, they are having one.
Slow breathing and loosening your muscles are not decoration. A body that is braced keeps telling the mind there is something to brace for, so unbracing it takes away part of the evidence.
You will not talk a driven person out of worrying, so give the worry a better job. If someone frets about their revision, have them fret about whether they are also taking breaks and sleeping, since those are part of the revision.