Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
In a hostile exchange, try a slow hmm instead of a reply. It sounds like someone thinking, and it puts a long out breath in the way of whatever you were about to say.
The sound we make when we are unsure is already in everyone's repertoire, and it reads as puzzlement rather than as a threat, so the other person has nothing to push back against. It also occupies your mouth for a few seconds, and it is surprisingly hard to launch a cutting line straight out of a hum. Let it run longer than feels natural.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Bear everything they say with patience (Quran 50:39). Patience here is not silence exactly, it is the small sound you make while you decide not to fire back.
فَٱصۡبِرۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ وَسَبِّحۡ بِحَمۡدِ رَبِّكَ قَبۡلَ طُلُوعِ ٱلشَّمۡسِ وَقَبۡلَ ٱلۡغُرُوبِ
So [Prophet], bear everything they say with patience; celebrate the praise of your Lord before the rising and setting of the sun
Qur’an 50:39read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Nobody has trialled this, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise. The nearest evidence is that rhythmic breathing with biofeedback shifted heart rate variability, brain asymmetry and self-reported anxiety in male athletes, in a small pilot study. So the breathing half has thin support and the social half is clinical observation. It costs nothing to test on yourself.
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
Curiosity and threat cannot be displayed at the same time, and the sound of curiosity happens to run on a long out breath.
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
Trace a slow circle with your finger, on your knee or in the air, once a day. One a day is the whole prescription, which is why it survives contact with real life.
Slowing the breath seems to widen the gap in which you can still see your options. It does not make the anger go away, it gives you a moment inside it.
People arrive at anger work braced for a lecture and an instruction to breathe deeply. Handing them something they did not see coming buys you their attention.