Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Anger runs through all of you at once, in the breath, the muscles, the gut and the thinking. Which means there is more than one door into it.
You do not have to win the argument in your head to bring it down. Slowing the out-breath, unclenching your hands, standing up and walking into another room all reach the same state from a different side. Use whichever door is nearest, and do not treat any one of them as the proper method.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God sent His tranquillity down on to His Messenger and the believers (Quran 48:26). Calm is described arriving into people whole, rather than as an argument won.
إِذۡ جَعَلَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ فِي قُلُوبِهِمُ ٱلۡحَمِيَّةَ حَمِيَّةَ ٱلۡجَٰهِلِيَّةِ فَأَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ سَكِينَتَهُۥ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِۦ وَعَلَى ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ وَأَلۡزَمَهُمۡ كَلِمَةَ ٱلتَّقۡوَىٰ وَكَانُوٓاْ أَحَقَّ بِهَا وَأَهۡلَهَاۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءٍ عَلِيمࣰ ا
While the disbelievers had fury in their hearts- the fury of ignorance- God sent His tranquillity down on to His Messenger and the believers and made binding on them [their] promise to obey God, for that was more appropriate and fitting for them. God has full knowledge of all things
Qur’an 48:26read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review across anxiety, depression, substance, eating and borderline personality problems found improvements in emotion regulation going alongside symptom improvement in each group, which supports treating regulation as one shared target reached by various routes. Quite different programmes showed the same pattern. It pooled treatment studies rather than comparing breath against thinking head to head.
Sloan E, Hall K, Moulding R, Bryce S, Mildred H, Staiger PK. (2017). Emotion regulation as a transdiagnostic treatment construct across anxiety, depression, substance, eating and borderline personality disorders: A systematic review.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
It is one connected state, so a change made anywhere in it registers everywhere.
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
Not everyone who never gets angry is at peace. Some learned very early that showing it was dangerous, and the stillness you are admiring cost them something.
Anger is not something to get round to next month. One bad half hour can cost a job, a marriage or a criminal record.
Defence starts at a boundary. When anger flares, something has been read as crossing a line, so the question worth asking is which line.