Chapter 9

HEART RATE AND BLOOD PRESSURE

When I cannot control myself anger takes over my mindset. Only I become the loser. Anger has no boundary, and it can anywhere: home, work, football game, public places, college and even in a place of worship where people are expected to be calm and relaxed.

Why did anger occur? It took place because I was not aware of myself. So, how does a person become aware that anger is brewing in his mind. One way to correct ourselves is to watch others when they get and not ridicule them, but to remind ourselves that is how I will look and get emotionally disturbed when I get angry.

Some of us attend all the courses on improving our behaviour and will never improve ourselves because we have not tackled our anger problems. I know lecturers and teachers of good parenting also getting angry. Good parenting can only be realised if we can control our own state of anger.

Let’s examine what is anger as we learn to drop the habit of getting angry. Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. Like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and adrenaline.

ANGER MANAGEMENT

Some simple steps you can try:Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won't relax you. Picture your breath coming up from your "gut." Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as "relax," "take it easy." Repeat it to yourself while breathing deeply. Use imagery; visualize a relaxing experience, from either your memory or your imagination. Non strenuous, slow yoga-like exercises can relax your muscles and make you feel much calmer. Practice these techniques daily. Learn to use them automatically when you're in a tense situation.

BETTER COMMUNICATION

The first thing to do if you're in a heated discussion is slow down and think through your responses. Don't say the first thing that comes into your head, but slow down and think carefully about what you want to say. At the same time, listen carefully to what the other person is saying and take your time before answering.
"It's because of lack of introspection - never spending time alone to reflect - and the absence of communication channels with those nearest to us; no quality time spent on learning to communicate with each other," says Dina, who also teaches meditation.Often courting couples spend a lot of time communicating privately and writing letters - but once they marry, all intimate communication stops - no time, they say - and tempers flare over the smallest issues.Healthy communication reduces this problem.
USING HUMOUR
"Silly humour" can help defuse rage in a number of ways. For one thing, it can help you get a more balanced perspective. When you get angry and call someone a name or refer to them in some imaginative phrase, stop and picture what that word would literally look like.

If you're at work and you think of a coworker as a "dirtbag" or a "single-cell life form," for example, picture a large bag full of dirt (or an amoeba) sitting at your colleague's desk, talking on the phone, going to meetings.
Do this whenever a name comes into your head about another person. If you can, draw a picture of what the actual thing might look like. This will take a lot of the edge off your fury; and humor can always be relied on to help unknot a tense situation. In combing through the pages, I came across a short story written by an American called Omer Washington.