One session of meditation can help reduce your body’s response to anger. In people who were new to meditation, anger raised their heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. But after only 20 minutes of meditation, people who had never done meditation before had a much calmer and more relaxed physical response when asked to re-experience anger. In people with dozens of hours of meditation experience, thinking about an angry experience did not elicit much of a physical reaction. Their heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate remained relaxed, both before and after meditation. The results of this new study, published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, are promising since anger causes us to be stressed, activates our sympathetic nervous system, and produces shallower, faster breathing, a rapid heart rate, and raises blood pressure. Next time you feel anger coming up, take a deep breath…