Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
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.
The same amount of air through a narrower gap takes longer to leave, so you get a long exhale without a dramatic inhale to set it up. It also gives you something checkable: are my lips actually pursed, is the air actually still moving. Being told to exhale slowly is hard to follow when you are heated, and this you can feel.
Qur’an and Sunnah
It is He who sends the winds as heralds of good news before His Mercy (Quran 25:48). A small movement of air arriving ahead of relief is not a bad picture of what this breath is doing.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَرۡسَلَ ٱلرِّيَٰحَ بُشۡرَۢا بَيۡنَ يَدَيۡ رَحۡمَتِهِۦۚ وَأَنزَلۡنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءࣰ طَهُورࣰ ا
It is He who sends the winds as heralds of good news before His Mercy. We send down pure water from the sky
Qur’an 25:48read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a small pilot study, rhythmic breathing with biofeedback shifted heart rate variability, brain asymmetry and self-reported anxiety in male athletes. A pilot with a narrow sample is consistent with the wider breathing literature rather than evidence in its own right. The mechanics of the pursed lip are plumbing, not a research finding.
Dziembowska I, Izdebski P, Rasmus A, Brudny J, Grzelczak M, Cysewski P. (2016). Effects of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback on EEG Alpha Asymmetry and Anxiety Symptoms in Male Athletes: A Pilot Study.. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A smaller opening stretches the out breath, and a stretched out breath is what does the settling.
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 breathing exercises have felt insulting to you in the past, it may be that they arrived too early. They tend to land once you can already feel the anger coming.
Anger has a shape you can learn: jaw tightening, breathing heavier, heat in the face, and often a strange busyness in the hands. Find your own two or three.
You already own this one. Let out a sigh of relief right now, on purpose, and notice that your body knew exactly what to do.