Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
If you swallow it all day at work and it comes out at home, home is not where the problem is. It is just the safest place to put it down.
Anger lands where retaliation costs least, which usually means on the people who will forgive you. Two things help more than trying to be calmer at the door. One is dealing with what actually happened at work, even if only by writing it down. The other is putting something in between, a walk, a shower, ten minutes sat in the car, so the day does not come through the door with you.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He threw the tablets down and seized his brother by the hair (Quran 7:150), and the brother's answer was that the people had overpowered him. The anger was real and the person it landed on was not the one who caused it.
وَلَمَّا رَجَعَ مُوسَىٰٓ إِلَىٰ قَوۡمِهِۦ غَضۡبَٰنَ أَسِفࣰ ا قَالَ بِئۡسَمَا خَلَفۡتُمُونِي مِنۢ بَعۡدِيٓۖ أَعَجِلۡتُمۡ أَمۡرَ رَبِّكُمۡۖ وَأَلۡقَى ٱلۡأَلۡوَاحَ وَأَخَذَ بِرَأۡسِ أَخِيهِ يَجُرُّهُۥٓ إِلَيۡهِۚ قَالَ ٱبۡنَ أُمَّ إِنَّ ٱلۡقَوۡمَ ٱسۡتَضۡعَفُونِي وَكَادُواْ يَقۡتُلُونَنِي فَلَا تُشۡمِتۡ بِيَ ٱلۡأَعۡدَآءَ وَلَا تَجۡعَلۡنِي مَعَ ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
On his return to his people, angry and aggrieved, Moses said, ‘How foul and evil is what you have done in my absence! Were you so keen to bring your Lord’s judgement forward?’ He threw the tablets down and seized his brother by the hair, pulling him towards him. Aaron said, ‘Son of my mother, these people overpowered me! They almost killed me! Do not give my enemies reason to rejoice! Do not include me with these evildoers!’
Qur’an 7:150read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A brain stimulation experiment found that damping down a region involved in holding back impulses increased both impulsive movement and retaliation after a provocation, which supports the idea of a narrow window in which restraint is still possible. That is an argument for putting time and distance between the provocation and the evening rather than relying on control once you are home. It was a small laboratory study and does not tell you how long a useful gap needs to be.
Dambacher F, Sack AT, Lobbestael J, Arntz A, Brugman S, Schuhmann T. (2015). Out of control: evidence for anterior insula involvement in motor impulsivity and reactive aggression.. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Anger picks its target by what is safe, not by what caused 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
Your family had its own rules about anger, quite apart from anything cultural. Those are the ones that shaped you, and they can be renegotiated.
Not all harm is done in a temper. Some is hot and explosive, some is cool and worked out beforehand, and the two need different things.
There is movement inside the word emotion, which turns out to be a fair description. Something starts moving in you before you have named anything.