Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
Find something with nothing in it to look at: sky, a blank wall, a ceiling, a stretch of grass. Do not concentrate on it. Let your attention spread out over it.
Hostile thinking needs something to grip, and it will use whatever the eyes hand it. An expanse with no features gives it nothing, so the replay tends to lose its footing after a minute or so. If you catch yourself picking out a mark on the wall and studying it, you have gone back to concentrating; ease off and let the whole surface be there at once.
Qur’an and Sunnah
It is God who has given you the night in which to rest and the day in which to see (Quran 40:61). Seeing is named as a gift alongside rest, and this is a way of using the eyes that rests rather than hunts.
ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلَّيۡلَ لِتَسۡكُنُواْ فِيهِ وَٱلنَّهَارَ مُبۡصِرًاۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَذُو فَضۡلٍ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكۡثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَشۡكُرُونَ
It is God who has given you the night in which to rest and the day in which to see. God is truly bountiful to people, but most people do not give thanks
Qur’an 40:61read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A randomised controlled trial found that self-guided physical activity, mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability biofeedback all reduced stress and improved wellbeing to a similar degree, which suggests the choice between routes can follow preference. Open gazing was not one of the arms, so it has not been shown to work in its own right. Use that finding as permission to pick what suits you rather than as evidence for this one.
van der Zwan JE, de Vente W, Huizink AC, Bögels SM, de Bruin EI. (2015). Physical activity, mindfulness meditation, or heart rate variability biofeedback for stress reduction: a randomized controlled trial.. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Rehearsing a grievance needs something to hold on to, and a blank expanse offers nothing to hold.
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 open awareness sounds like too much, put it plainly: look at the background instead of the thing in front of it. That is the entire instruction.
If you use a cooling spot on the nose or a hand on the chest, think of it as an anchor for calm rather than a trick that blocks anger. The honest description is also the more useful one.
If someone already has a practice in their life, hang the new skill on that rather than handing them something foreign.