Anger is defined as an emotion characterised by hostility towards someone or something that you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Anger can be a motivating force too; it can prompt you to express your negative feelings in a healthy manner, find solutions to your problems and draw boundaries with people. The flip side is, when expressed in an excessive and unhealthy manner, anger can wreak havoc on a person’s mental, emotional and physical health. Intimate and work relationships also suffer as anger is an aggressive emotion that causes mistrust, pain and further anger. Children, who are not taught to be comfortable with expressing anger, channel their rage into tantrums and physical violence.
Anger tethers a person to the past, leaving little or no space for better emotions like joy and peace. Yoga treats such blockages with kriyas (cleansing techniques) that work on a person’s emotional energy. The following is a guide to a simple but highly effective method that both adults and children can practise to release anger, train the mind to reduce aggression and respond thoughtfully and peacefully to any kind of stimulus that one encounters.
Nasikagra DrishtiThis practice can be ideally done every day early in the morning or just before you go to sleep.
Sit comfortably in any position, with your chin parallel to the ground and your spine straight.
Rest your hands on your knees, close your eyes and relax your whole body.
Take a moment or two to connect to your breath, focus on your eyes and let them relax in their sockets.
Remember to breathe normally all through the practice.
Open your eyes and cross them to focus on the nose tip.
Do not strain your eyes in any manner.
When you see a double outline of your nose, you have focused your eyes correctly.
Focus on the apex of the V that you can see.
The mind will tend to wander, so you have to keep bringing your attention back to what you are doing.
Initially, practise the nose-tip gazing for a minute and slowly work your way up to five minutes.
When you are finished, rub your palms together till they are warm and place them on your eyes.
