With all of the struggles of the holiday season, it’s no surprise that a holiday that is
meant to have positive emotions tied to it can easily spin people into fits of rage.
After experiencing a bit of anger and a lot of frustration attempting to get a gift for my brother (it needed to be returned which led to a series of difficulties), I started to think
about how humans naturally react to anger. I mean, I couldn’t possibly be the only one who wanted to beat down the phone sales associates, could I?
As it turns out, the answer is no – I’m far from alone here (not that I didn’t partially realize this already). Hopefully, some of this information that I am about to present gives you something you didn’t already know. All the information comes from an interesting How Stuff Works article that I found after searching “how anger works” on Google.
Anger is a natural emotion that is a response that occurs when something has violated
the natural order of how we believe things should go. Anger obviously varies between
gender, age, and culture, but there’s no way of predicting which factor influences anger
more than any other.
From a brain standpoint, the amygdala (the part of the brain that handles emotion) responds to a trigger event, and immediately sends blood flow to that portion of the brain that controls reasoning: the frontal lobe.
A great example of this process is the case of the mild-mattered Phineas Gage, a 19th
century railroad worker who after taking a rod through the skull (talk about a splitting
headache) became an absolute loose cannon, personality-wise.
Being chronically angry can have myriad bad effects on a person’s health. And this fails to factor in the damage it does to those forced to contend with such a “Grumpy Gus.”
So, how can you cope with anger so over the top that you go all professional wrestler and hit someone with a steel chair? It’s all about practicing anger control.
While it may be hard to do, talking things over with the offender is the best starting point. It allows people to move forward and fix a negative in their life. Even talking to a third party in a non-gossipy way can ease the growing frustration in your life.
So next time you need to order a replacement for the replacement for the product you bought for Jimmy for Christmas, try to address the phone operator with kindness
and hold back your anger when they tell you that you’ll eventually need to pay more
money or tell you that there’s nothing that they can do. And remember: You are not alone!
