Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
What changes things is what you actually rehearse. Advice you agreed with does very little on its own.
So take one thing and repeat it rather than collecting ten good ideas. One breathing practice, one line to say, one route out of the room. Repeated clumsily, it will still be there when you need it, which is more than a perfect plan you never ran.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Who keep up the prayer; who give secretly and openly from what We have provided for them; who repel evil with good (Quran 13:22). Answering badness with better is listed among ordinary habits, next to prayer and giving, rather than as a heroic exception.
وَٱلَّذِينَ صَبَرُواْ ٱبۡتِغَآءَ وَجۡهِ رَبِّهِمۡ وَأَقَامُواْ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَأَنفَقُواْ مِمَّا رَزَقۡنَٰهُمۡ سِرࣰّ ا وَعَلَانِيَةࣰ وَيَدۡرَءُونَ بِٱلۡحَسَنَةِ ٱلسَّيِّئَةَ أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ لَهُمۡ عُقۡبَى ٱلدَّارِ
who remain steadfast through their desire for the face of their Lord; who keep up the prayer; who give secretly and openly from what We have provided for them; who repel evil with good. These will have the reward of the [true] home
Qur’an 13:22read 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 with 234 adults with troubling anger, brief therapist-supported internet treatments teaching mindful awareness of emotion, reappraisal, or both, reduced anger. These were skills programmes, so the reduction came with practice attached to it. It was a short guided course, which tells you the direction rather than the ceiling.
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
Repetition is what makes something available at speed.
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
If they made you feel this, then only they can undo it. That is the quiet trap inside taking things personally.
A break only counts if you come back. Notice the anger, leave the room, actually settle yourself, then return and finish the conversation.
The aim is to become more exact rather than more serene. Is this rudeness or tiredness, a slight or a coincidence, this person or the whole category they remind you of?