A minuteAny ordinary dayBody basedAnger

You may hear that humming floods you with nitric oxide and drops your blood pressure. Humming does raise nitric oxide in the nose. The rest of that sentence is a leap.

It is worth being careful with this, because a practice sold on a dramatic mechanism gets dropped when the mechanism turns out to be shaky. Hum because the out breath lengthens and your attention lands in your body. Those are enough. If a bigger claim turns out to be true later, nothing you were doing has to change.

Qur’an and Sunnah

Believers, remember God often (Quran 33:41). The instruction rests on doing the small thing repeatedly rather than on any impressive account of how it works.

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱذۡكُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ذِكۡرࣰ ا كَثِيرࣰ ا

Believers, remember God often

Qur’an 33:41read it in the library

Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.

What the research says

An exploratory study found that deliberately raising heart rate variability through slow breathing dampened autonomic effects of an inflammatory challenge, which shows breathing can reach deep physiological systems. Even so, it was small and exploratory, and it is a long way from there to the claim that humming lowers your blood pressure by releasing a gas from your sinuses. Take the modest version and leave the rest.

Lehrer P, Karavidas MK, Lu SE, Coyle SM, Oikawa LO, Macor M, Calvano SE, Lowry SF. (2010). Voluntarily produced increases in heart rate variability modulate autonomic effects of endotoxin induced systemic inflammation: an exploratory study.. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback doi

Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.

Why it works

The out breath and the settled attention are doing the work, and they do not need a grander explanation to be worth your minute.

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 the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.

Twenty minutesCool the body first

Open gazing and long unfocused staring do not suit everyone. If things start to feel unreal or far away, stop and look at something you can name.

Five minutesCool the body first

Anger leaves fuel in the body with nowhere to go. Spend it on something physical, without replaying the argument while you do.

Twenty minutesCool the body first