Mad as Hell
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Red-alert ready Don't get hooked Who's a hot head? Get it off your chest Five steps to serenity How do you channel your anger? << back to Work/Life Balance << back to ANF Women's Forum |
Don’t get hooked As human beings aiming to survive another millennium, we’re hardwired to get angry when something or someone threatens our wellbeing. Much like pain or fear, anger signals that something’s not quite right and triggers the fight-or-flight response, a series of biochemical changes that pump us up so we can either stand firm and face whatever’s threatening us, or just run like hell. Stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released into our bloodstream. Our heart rate and respiration increase. Pupils dilate. Blood streams towards our large muscles and away from our stomach and intestines, slowing digestion. As Dr Allan puts it, “Who needs to digest lunch when you’re about to become lunch?” Of course, these days the threats we’re facing aren’t usually charging rhinos. “What makes women angry the most is betrayal,” says Brecht. “Women put a massive amount of importance on trust and honesty. Let them down, and that causes anger. But women can hold a lot of feelings of betrayal that aren’t really rational. Women feel their friends should agree with them no matter what. Think like this, and you’ll set yourself up to be severely disappointed.” Anger triggers, or “hooks”, fall into two broad categories, says Dr Allan. What also pisses us off is feeling disrespected or misunderstood, or when our territory – physical or psychological – is violated. This last bit rings true to me. I’m hypersensitive to territorial trespassers. On a trip to the supermarket, I’m incensed by a car parked across two spaces. Inside, I shove aside the shopping trolley left in the middle of the pasta aisle by an absentminded shopper on her mobile. Then, steps from home, I spot a woman walking her dog on a retractable lead, taking up the full width of the pavement. I’m on a mission now, doing what Anna Maravelas, psychotherapist and author of How to Reduce Workplace Conflict and Stress ($25.95, Career Press), calls “searching for stupidity”. As I approach the dog walker, she retracts the lead, smiles – and leaves me with a racing pulse and an undeniable sense of my inanity. It seems I have a minor “anger habit”. Small wonder, given that rush of anger we’ve all experienced is, well, a rush. “For some people, the high arousal state of anger is almost like an addiction,” says Dr Allan. In an ingenious 2005 study, psychologists at the University of Kentucky showed letter sequences to volunteers and asked them to distinguish actual words from random strings of characters. The volunteers also filled out a questionnaire designed to measure anger levels. The “high anger” volunteers recognised words such as furious, upset and hostile faster than neutral (footwear, chow, scaffold) or happiness (ecstasy, delight, joy) words. What that means in real life: those of us who are supersensitive to slights tend to zero in on the bad stuff and filter out the good. So, for example, after that dinner party last week, when your sister annoyed the crap out of you by saying, “You got a little overheated when we were talking about Mum and Dad’s anniversary party,” you may well have missed what was coming next, when she said: “But you were so well informed, I think you convinced everyone your plan is right.” Anger can also be comforting, in a self-righteous sort of way. “When we’re angry, we assume a position of superiority, at least in our own minds,” Dr Allan says. “The surge of righteous indignation stokes our self-esteem. What’s implied is, ‘I wouldn’t borrow your favourite necklace without returning it’.” Rage can be a weirdly safe place to land when we’re fragile. When feelings of hurt and vulnerability are too scary to face, anger kicks in as a form of self-protection. What you’re feeling: “I don’t know if you’re going to do something that will hurt me forever”. What you say: “Stop being an idiot”. |