Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
Most of what sets you off is meaning rather than sensation: somebody's tone, a look you have seen before, what you take it to say about you.
That is useful, because it tells you where to aim. Sensory tricks can steady the body while the storm passes, and they will not touch the interpretation that started it. Both jobs exist, and it is worth being a little suspicious of any single explanation that claims to do both.
Qur’an and Sunnah
There truly are signs in this for those who hear (Quran 10:67). Attention is asked for what is actually there, which is a fair standard to hold your own explanations to.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلَّيۡلَ لِتَسۡكُنُواْ فِيهِ وَٱلنَّهَارَ مُبۡصِرًاۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَأٓيَٰتࣲ لِّقَوۡمࣲ يَسۡمَعُونَ
It is He who made the night so that you can rest in it and the daylight so that you can see- there truly are signs in this for those who hear
Qur’an 10:67read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of meditation research found small to medium improvements in emotional and relational outcomes in adults without a diagnosis, while noting that three quarters of the studies found had to be excluded for methodological weakness. That is the honest shape of a good deal of this field. Take the modest version of a claim and you will not have to walk it back later.
Sedlmeier P, Eberth J, Schwarz M, Zimmermann D, Haarig F, Jaeger S, Kunze S. (2012). The psychological effects of meditation: a meta-analysis.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Working on the wrong link in the chain costs you effort and leaves the trigger exactly where it was.
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
Find something with nothing in it to look at: sky, a blank wall, a ceiling, a stretch of grass. Do not concentrate on it. Let your attention spread out over it.
Anger leaves fuel in the body with nowhere to go. Spend it on something physical, without replaying the argument while you do.
Counting to ten asks you to keep track of numbers at the exact moment you cannot keep track of anything. Breathe out slowly instead and let the breath do the delaying.