Areas › Anger › Making it stick
Meditation does more as upkeep than as a fire extinguisher. Doing it on the calm days is what lowers the level your threat system sits at.
If you only reach for it when you are already furious, it will seem useless and you will drop it, which is what usually happens. Practise it when nothing at all is wrong. Then on the day something is wrong, you start from slightly further down the scale.
Qur’an and Sunnah
You who believe, be steadfast, more steadfast than others; be ready; always be mindful of God (Quran 3:200). Readiness and constant mindfulness describe upkeep rather than rescue.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱصۡبِرُواْ وَصَابِرُواْ وَرَابِطُواْ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ
You who believe, be steadfast, more steadfast than others; be ready; always be mindful of God, so that you may prosper
Qur’an 3:200read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review of controlled trials in bipolar disorder found that structured continuing work, cognitive behavioural therapy and group psychoeducation, reduced relapse where generic support did not. That is a different condition and a different practice, so it is not evidence about meditation or about anger. What it supports is the shape of the thing: something structured that keeps running does more than help gathered at the point of crisis.
Beynon S, Soares-Weiser K, Woolacott N, Duffy S, Geddes JR. (2008). Psychosocial interventions for the prevention of relapse in bipolar disorder: systematic review of controlled trials.. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A quieter baseline means the same provocation has less distance to travel before it becomes a shout.
When not to
In the middle of a flare this is not the tool for that minute, so use whatever interrupt you have and come back to the practice afterwards.
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
Sit still, choose a position, and hold it. Within seconds your body will be asking to move the chin or scratch the neck, and each of those small urges is a free repetition of letting an impulse pass.
When you offer a practice to someone, use their words for it rather than yours. Keep the fuller version ready for the day they ask where it comes from.
Sometimes you can feel the whole exchange lined up before it starts: your line, then theirs, then the door. Leaving your line out is enough to stop the sequence that once.