Psychologist Daniel Goleman talks about the emotional kidnapping that involves anger, an automatic response from the most primitive brain, designed to survive, that hijacks the most rational part in a millisecond and that can lead us to do things that we immediately regret. ..
Few people consciously and maturely learn to manage anger. In general, they teach us to repress it: "How dare you speak to me like that!", "Don't yell at me!", "Leave me alone!", "How unpleasant you are when you get like this!". In these cases, when anger erupts it is because we cannot take it anymore. We then enter a verbal and physical escalation that puts the other on the defensive. Psychologist Daniel Goleman talks about the "magic second" that we have before falling into the emotional seizure of anger: it is that very brief moment in which you consciously feel and recognize the physical signs of anger and you still have time to take a deep breath and get away so that the most emotional circuits do not hijack you.
One of the ancient philosophers who best understood people and who has left us the most clues about how to manage anger is, without a doubt, Seneca, who considered anger as a very dangerous emotion because "it raises a red mist on the head" that it prevents us from making good decisions and makes us weaker. He wrote On Anger for his brother, Novatus, who was reputed to have a bad temper and conflict.
In this work, Seneca offers three good clues for managing anger:
- Know what triggers your anger:«Let us take note of what particularly provokes us, because not all men feel hurt in the same place. You must learn which part of you is weak, so that you can give it the greatest possible protection.
- Ask yourself what tends to make you more angry.
- In anger, take a breather: "The best cure for anger is waiting," says Seneca. Thus, the initial passion that you feel will lose intensity and the fog that obfuscates us will be able to dissipate ». Physiologically, when a negative emotion invades us, it takes around ninety seconds for our body to process the stress hormones and regain their normal state. If after that time you continue to think about what makes you sad or angry, you repeat the physiological process and you are caught in a vicious circle. So when you have a negative emotion, as soon as you feel it decrease, change the focus, do something different, for example, consciously generate a happy memory or watch a funny movie, and focus on that.
- Smile, even if you don't feel like it: "Let the expression on your face be relaxed instead of frowning; your softest voice; your most measured steps. Little by little, the outer features will shape the inner features."
It is striking that Seneca's words, spoken centuries ago, are so contemporary: neuroscience and psychology have revealed to us in recent years that, indeed, anger causes a chemical discharge that needs a quiet time to dissipate. And, without a doubt, facial and body gestures have a powerful impact on our emotions.
There is a close relationship between body and mind. See for yourself: when you think of something that makes you happy, your heart beats slower, because you are less afraid, and you smile, which is a sign of openness to others. And the funny thing is that this also works the other way around: when you smile, even if you don't feel like it, you generate a chemistry that makes you feel better. Laughter also increases our levels of serotonin, a hormone that provides well-being. So, if you want to feel good ... Smile even if you don't feel like it!
Seneca also highlights another characteristic of anger: that it is very contagious, so he recommends that "in the same way that in times of plague we move away from infected bodies, when we choose our friends we must pay attention to their character." And also in this he was right, since we now know for sure, that emotions are contagious, literally, like a virus: living beings have a tendency to synchronize and imitate our facial expressions, gestures and way of speaking ... and also to adapt emotionally to each other.