Motivation Tutor

Google

Monday, July 24, 2006

Anger Management and Human Reactions

Anger is a natural human emotion, thus a normal reaction of a person to external stimulus. Yet, if not well managed, anger can cause a lot of troubles such as conflicts at workplace, fights in the family, rejection of others, loneliness. Anger damages personal relationships. You may say that in this case, it is desirable to get rid of this emotion for good. Well, things are not quite like this. Think of progress: why do revolutions occur? Because of people getting angry with the current system, wanting to make it better of to change it. Why are there so many discoveries and inventions? Because of some people getting angry with items around them not fulfilling their needs entirely. Aristotle had some great words about anger:



“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.”


Briefly, that is anger management. How to do it, that is another story and it needs a lot of practice. Next time you come into a situation that makes you angry, try to follow the next steps:


1. Notice the internal changes in your body immediately after being exposed to the anger stimulus. You will probably feel your blood flow intensifying, a raise of your pulse, an intensification of your heartbeats. This step should last for less than a second.


2. Don’t react yet, let your brain become fully conscious of the changes within you, take deep breaths and don’t think of anything else than the anger flow within your veins. This step can last a few seconds.


3. If you managed to follow the first two steps, you are already less exposed to an anger burst, only due to the simple fact that you became aware of the process of getting angry. And you delayed your reaction with only a few seconds, not more. Now you can think: evaluate the damage. Then think of what more damage your anger burst may bring in additionally. Keep in mind that whatever is upsetting you so badly, it was already done, and that life has no undo command, so you would never ever be able to re-establish the initial state of things.


4. Now, if you still feel like going furious, do it, but notice the changes in your body. Do you feel the heart pumping a huge flow of blood towards your head? Do you feel your neck veins swallowing while blood crosses them? Do you feel like your eyeballs don’t have enough room in their orbits and tend to come out? And your voice! Pay attention to your voice when shouting: isn’t it funny how it gets higher and higher until a final point where it almost disappears? Hear your words: can you spot anything constructive in your angry speech? I very much doubt that.


5. The anger moment has gone. Isn’t it true that you are still under its effects? Notice how much time your body needs to relax and to gain back its initial state. I bet you still feel some reactions even 10-15 minutes after the explosion. This means nothing but useless ware for your organs, a burden for your heart and veins, an additional job for your brain. Besides, this does not solve anything, you still have to evaluate the situation and take some adult decisions.



It will probably take you a while until you manage to go through all 5 steps. But if you succeed, it will be a very rewarding experience, trust me. After practicing this enough to become a habit, you can step further and try to eliminate step 4 from the process. What will happen: you’ll get directly to the constructive and positive way of thinking, your feedback will improve and the others will like you more and they will recognize you as a leader, able to show them the way right out of trouble. And your internal organs would be willing to come out to give you a hug! You will save your heart from beating like crazy, your head from preparing to blow up and you’ll protect your vocal cords. Remember that life is no more than a chain of experiments: you don’t have to do this for the rest of your life. You set a time for experiment, you do it and evaluate the results. If you are happy, go on. If you are miserable, stop it and try something else. We change with every moment. We re-write our definition with any new idea, with any new experiment, with any new friends or other connections we make. This is being alive in my vision and I challenge you to give it a thought.


Article by : Simonne Matthew

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



<< Home