Areas › Anger › The moment before you snap
Let the strength of the feeling be your signal. When it is this loud, your judgement is temporarily unavailable, so the rule is simply no replies and no decisions at this volume.
Noticing intensity is far easier than working out whether you are being fair, and it still works when you are overloaded. Set the rule while you are calm: above a certain level I do not send it, sign it, or say it. Then the only job in the moment is to notice the level.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you remain mindful of God, He will give you a criterion [to tell right from wrong] (Quran 8:29). A standard held in advance is what you lean on when your own reading of the moment cannot be trusted.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن تَتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ يَجۡعَل لَّكُمۡ فُرۡقَانࣰ ا وَيُكَفِّرۡ عَنكُمۡ سَيِّـَٔاتِكُمۡ وَيَغۡفِرۡ لَكُمۡۗ وَٱللَّهُ ذُو ٱلۡفَضۡلِ ٱلۡعَظِيمِ
Believers, if you remain mindful of God, He will give you a criterion [to tell right from wrong] and wipe out your bad deeds, and forgive you: God’s favour is great indeed
Qur’an 8:29read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised experiment, forming a specific if-then plan beforehand reduced how much tempting food people served themselves, showing that a decision made in advance can override an impulse in the moment. It was a study of portion size rather than anger, so the principle transfers better than the details do.
van Koningsbruggen GM, Veling H, Stroebe W, Aarts H. (2014). Comparing two psychological interventions in reducing impulsive processes of eating behaviour: effects on self-selected portion size.. British journal of health psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A rule fixed in advance takes the decision away from the version of you least able to make it.
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
Slow your out breath. The threat system reads the state of your blood as well as the state of the room, so changing how you breathe changes something it is genuinely listening to.
Run it for about ninety seconds, stop, and see how that was. Short and repeated beats one long sit, especially if sitting still is not your strong point.
That small press of your own finger does two jobs. It marks the thought, and it gives you a bit of contact with yourself while everything around you is loud.