It seems like more and more people are mad these days. Not just irritated or annoyed, but vein-popping, spittle-producing, all-out enraged. A City of Raleigh road crew guy screamed at me yesterday when I pulled out as he was directing traffic (I honestly didn’t know what the heck his arm waving was all about until too late). I think Barney Fife would have used his one bullet on me if he had had the chance!!! And then there is the woman I know who practically had the vapors (it’s a Southern Thing) over an imagined slight from someone I can guarantee doesn’t know that she even caused a problem.
Anger can be helpful (it is part of our primal fight or flight response that has kept mortals alive since our existence). But “chronic anger not only affects our relationships with others, it can harm our bodies, leading to heart disease, diabetes and other healthy problems.” It can send your hormone levels out of whack, and your blood pressure and pulse rate go way up*. It has been linked to decreases in the immune system and increases in our depression rates. So really, is the idiot yakking on the cell phone who doesn’t remember to use his turn signal worth a heart attack?
So what do we do when we are surrounded by angry people? How do we avoid turning into the beast ourselves? Here are some techniques that experts offer to help us get control of those emotions and rein in our desire pull an adult tantrum:
1. Assume innocence: instead of jumping to a conclusion that someone meant to hurt your feelings or deliberately insulted you, come from a position of assuming that they didn’t know your reaction would be like that or that they meant no harm. Haven’t we all had a slip of the tongue and said things that we regretted once said, or realized later had an undesired affect? Cut the other person some slack!
2. Change your response to a positive one: try thinking of the upside to being subjected to some jerk’s cell phone call or missing the start to the movie. My favorite one when I get caught at a red light is to say “who knows, if I had made that yellow light I might have been in wrong place up the road and involved in an accident.” Or “This insufferable boor’s toe fungus story is going to make a hilarious anecdote to tell my friends.”
3. Relax and take a deep breath: I know, easier said than done sometimes. And even though I am in a relaxation store all day long, even I can forget this one occasionally ;-) But try the classic long slow breaths while you count to ten, after a few you will find yourself better able to cope.
So how about you, can you suggest some tips for not letting anger bring out the beast in you?
Source: WebMD
