Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
Squeeze the hand, hold it for a few seconds, then let it go slowly. The letting go is where the calm is, and it works better once you have practised the long version.
Full muscle relaxation, working through the body group by group, takes about twenty minutes and is worth doing a handful of times. Once your body knows what that release feels like, the single hand version can call some of it back in seconds. Skipping the long version and expecting the short one to deliver is the usual reason people say it does nothing.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Keep up the prayer so that you remember Me (Quran 20:14). A physical routine is given as the means of returning attention, and a small cue borrows from that same pairing.
إِنَّنِيٓ أَنَا ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّآ أَنَا۠ فَٱعۡبُدۡنِي وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ لِذِكۡرِيٓ
I am God; there is no god but Me. So worship Me and keep up the prayer so that you remember Me
Qur’an 20:14read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised experiment comparing brief mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation and loving kindness practice, the breathing exercise did most for helping people stand back from their thoughts and react less to repetitive ones. So if what you need is distance from your own thinking, breath may serve you better. For the physical side, tension and release is still a straightforward way to feel the difference between held and let go.
Feldman G, Greeson J, Senville J. (2010). Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The short cue borrows its effect from the longer practice it has been paired with.
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
There is a fair worry that punch shaped exercise simply practises the punch. The test is easy: if the angry story is still running in your head, it is rehearsal.
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.
To make an out breath last longer without a big gulp of air first, make the opening smaller. Purse your lips, or send the air out through your nose.