New Study Shows Brief Meditation Can Reduce Anger

• Sit comfortably.
• Close your eyes or stare at the ground a few feet away from you.
• Rest your hands on your thighs.
• Focus your attention on the area a few fingers below your navel.
• Take a smooth, slow breath in and count each inhale and exhale, from one to ten and then back down to one.
• Let thoughts come and go. Do not hold onto any particular thought.
• If thoughts interrupt your counting, come back to your breath, and restart your counting again at 1.

Repeated, consistent practice of meditation enhances our ability to cope and sit with negative emotions like anger without reacting.

Studies suggest that, regardless of the practitioner’s experience, meditation can help reduce the body's response to anger, reducing the toll frequent anger takes on you.

Anger and frustration cause us to be stressed, activate our sympathetic nervous system, and produce shallower, faster breathing, a rapid heart rate, and raises blood pressure.

In people with dozens of hours of meditation experience, thinking about an angry experience showed no physical reaction. Their heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate remained relaxed, both before and after meditation.