Areas › Anger › Practising under provocation
Ask how settled you are and you will usually say fine. Look at your breathing instead, since it is generally more honest than the answer you give.
Quick, shallow breathing high in the chest usually means the moment is not over yet, whatever you have just told someone. In a session a therapist watches this to decide whether to carry on or to stop. On your own it is a reason to take a few more minutes before the next thing, rather than deciding you have recovered because you said you had.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast (Quran 2:153). When your breathing says you are not settled yet, that is where the verse sends you.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
You who believe, seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast
Qur’an 2:153read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a military predeployment protocol, relaxation training assisted by heart rate variability biofeedback changed the physiological stress response, which supports the idea that a bodily measure both tracks this state and can be trained. That involved specialised equipment and a very particular group. Watching your own breath is a rough stand in rather than the same thing.
Lewis GF, Hourani L, Tueller S, Kizakevich P, Bryant S, Weimer B, Strange L. (2015). Relaxation training assisted by heart rate variability biofeedback: Implication for a military predeployment stress inoculation protocol.. Psychophysiology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Your body keeps a record of the arousal that your own report tends to round down.
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
Treat these as experiments rather than instructions. You are not obeying a programme, you are finding out what happens, and that difference changes how it feels to do them.
Before you practise something exposing with someone, say out loud what is not at risk. I will not think less of you, and nothing between us changes here.
Here is a small one to practise on. Take the time you need to park properly, even with somebody waiting, instead of driving on to find an easier spot.