Areas › Anger › The moment before you snap
A face read quickly is a face read badly. Before you answer what you think you saw, allow that the flat look might be tiredness, or worry about something else entirely.
Faces get processed fast and with very little checking, which is why a neutral expression lands as contempt when you are already braced for it. If it matters, ask. Something as plain as you looked annoyed then, was that about me, costs almost nothing and often ends the whole thing before it starts.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Believers, if a troublemaker brings you news, check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have done (Quran 49:6). A face is a kind of report too, and it deserves the same checking.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإࣲ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ أَن تُصِيبُواْ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَٰلَةࣲ فَتُصۡبِحُواْ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلۡتُمۡ نَٰدِمِينَ
Believers, if a troublemaker brings you news, check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have done
Qur’an 49:6read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised controlled trial, brief internet delivered treatments teaching either mindful awareness of emotion or reinterpretation of the situation both reduced problematic anger, with no clear advantage to combining them. Noticing your own reaction and re reading the situation both helped, and checking a face is a small version of each. It was a short, therapist supported programme, so it speaks to direction more than to size.
Bjureberg J, Ojala O, Berg A, Edvardsson E, Kolbeinsson Ö, Molander O, Morin E, Nordgren L, Palme K, Särnholm J, Wedin L, Rück C, Gross JJ, Hesser H. (2023). Targeting maladaptive anger with brief therapist-supported internet-delivered emotion regulation treatments: A randomized controlled trial.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Asking turns a guess about somebody's face into information you actually have.
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
You can be in full control of what you do and still be burning inside. Calm is not the entry requirement.
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.
Most of us rehearse the crushing line we wish we had said. Try spending that same time writing what you would actually like to say next time, and keep it short enough to remember.