Areas › Anger › Cool the body first
While you drink, follow the cold going down the back of your throat. It turns a sip into half a minute of attention resting somewhere other than the argument.
Telling yourself to observe your thoughts without judging them is a lot to ask mid conflict. Following a cold sensation is not. There is a real thing happening, it lasts a few seconds, and you can notice where it stops. When it fades, take another sip and do it again. Three of those and you are usually in a different place from where you started.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We send down pure water from the sky (Quran 25:48). Water arriving as relief is the image, and the cold at the back of your throat is a small and literal version of it.
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 randomised controlled trial, two weeks of aerobic exercise reduced post-traumatic stress symptoms, and how much people benefited varied with what they attended to while they exercised. That supports the general point that the attention you bring to a physical act is part of what the act does. It was a small short trial about exercise and trauma symptoms, not about sipping water during a row.
Fetzner MG, Asmundson GJ. (2015). Aerobic Exercise Reduces Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.. Cognitive behaviour therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A definite physical sensation is far easier to attend to under pressure than an abstract instruction about your mind.
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 someone already has a practice in their life, hang the new skill on that rather than handing them something foreign.
Rather than noting each impulse in your head, touch a finger for each one. Thumb to index, thumb to middle, and on round the hand.
When one thing fills your view, everything around it stops registering. You can be staring hard and taking in almost nothing.