Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
The usual advice to take a deep breath can work against you. A big pull of air in rouses the very system you are trying to quiet.
Leave the in breath alone and lengthen only the out breath. Breathe in normally through the nose, let the air out slowly, then repeat without ever making the inhale a project. If you have been told for years to fill your lungs, this will feel like doing less than you should, and that is rather the point.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Return to your Lord well pleased and well pleasing (Quran 89:28). Settling is described as a return rather than something you force into being, which is worth holding when you are tempted to breathe harder at it.
ٱرۡجِعِيٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةࣰ مَّرۡضِيَّةࣰ
return to your Lord well pleased and well pleasing
Qur’an 89:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A clinical trial that trained people with panic disorder to breathe more slowly and raise their carbon dioxide levels found symptoms fell, and the physiological change tracked the clinical one. That directly supports putting the emphasis on slower, smaller breathing rather than big deep breaths. The strong version of the claim goes too far, since slow deep breathing does have supportive evidence: this is a correction of emphasis, not a technique being written off.
Meuret AE, Wilhelm FH, Ritz T, Roth WT. (2008). Feedback of end-tidal pCO2 as a therapeutic approach for panic disorder.. Journal of psychiatric research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The in breath speeds the heart and the out breath slows it, so the work belongs on the way out.
When not to
If you have a breathing condition such as asthma, or you get dizzy easily, keep the changes small and check with whoever looks after your care.
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
Shouting it out does not empty the tank. Going over it loudly, in your head or at somebody, tends to keep the anger topped up rather than draining it.
If you feel yourself rising, sit down. It is the smallest instruction in the whole toolkit and often the one that works.
Angry eyes are not unfocused, they are too focused. Everything funnels down onto the person or thing in front of you and the rest of the room goes missing.