Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
Anger looks at the person and edits out the room. It is the man who is rude, never the traffic, the deadline or the night he spent awake.
This tilt sits in everybody, not only in you. Assuming bad intent has always been the cheaper error to make, which is why the mind reaches for it first. Knowing that helps, because a bias everyone has is something you can check for, while a personal flaw is something you defend.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided (Quran 16:125). The sorting of people is placed somewhere other than with you, which leaves you free to deal with what actually happened.
ٱدۡعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِٱلۡحِكۡمَةِ وَٱلۡمَوۡعِظَةِ ٱلۡحَسَنَةِۖ وَجَٰدِلۡهُم بِٱلَّتِي هِيَ أَحۡسَنُۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَن ضَلَّ عَن سَبِيلِهِۦ وَهُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِٱلۡمُهۡتَدِينَ
[Prophet], call [people] to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good teaching. Argue with them in the most courteous way, for your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided
Qur’an 16:125read 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 imaging studies in mood and anxiety disorders found that reappraisal engaged the same prefrontal and amygdala system as in other people, though with altered activation, suggesting the capacity is present but works less efficiently. Re-reading a situation stays available even when it is harder than usual. These were laboratory tasks, and altered activation does not tell you what will help a particular person.
Picó-Pérez M, Radua J, Steward T, Menchón JM, Soriano-Mas C. (2017). Emotion regulation in mood and anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis of fMRI cognitive reappraisal studies.. Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Reactions get milder once the cause is shared out between the person and their circumstances.
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
Change seems to need three things at once: a reason, a method, and enough freedom in the moment to use the method. When you stall, work out which one is missing before trying harder at all of them.
After you do something deliberately, skip the question of what you did differently. Ask what it felt like from the inside.
A routine only helps you while you still mean it. Every so often, ask whether you are keeping a habit because you chose it or because you stopped noticing it.