How to Tame the Anger Monster I. Three factors causing anger A. time a. at wo

How to Tame the Anger Monster
    Good morning! Today we’ll look at how to tame the anger monster. As you all know, human beings have always experienced anger. But in earlier, more civil decades, public displays of anger were unusual to the point of being aberrant. Today, however, whether in petty or deadly forms, episodes of unrepressed rage have become part of our daily landscape.
    What has happened to us? Are we that much angrier than we used to be? Have we lost all inhibitions about expressing our anger? Are we, as a society, literally losing our ability to control our tempers?
    According to Sybil Evans, a conflict-resolution expert, there are three components to blame for our societal bad behavior: time, technology and tension.
    What’s eating up our time? (1) To begin with, Americans work longer hours and are rewarded with less vacation time than people in any other industrial society. Over an average year, for example, most British employees work 250 hours less than most Americans; most Germans work a full 500 hours less. And most Europeans are given four to six weeks’ vacation every year, compared to the average American’s two weeks. (2) To make matters worse, many Americans face long stressful commutes at the beginning and end of each long workday.
    Once we Americans finally get home from work, our busy day is rarely done. (3) We are involved in community activities, our children’s activities, and our houses, yards and cars cry out for maintenance. (4) To make matters worse, we are reluctant to use the little bit of leisure time we do have to catch up on our sleep. Compared with nine-and-a-half hours a night our ancestors typically slept, many of us feel lucky to get seven. We’re critical of "lazy" people who sleep longer, and we associate naps with toddlerhood.
    The bottom line: we are time-challenged and just plain tired—and (5) tired people are cranky people. We’re ready to blow—to snap at the slow-moving cashier, to tap the bumper of the slowpoke ahead of us, or to do something far worse.
    Technology is also to blame for the bad behavior so widespread in culture. Amazing gadgets were supposed to make our lives easier—but have they? Sure, technology has its positive aspects. It is a blessing, for instance, to have a cell phone on hand when your car breaks down far from home or to be able to "instant message" a friend on the other side of the globe. But the downsides are many. (6) Cell phones, pagers, fax machines, handheld computers and the like have robbed many of us of what was once valuable downtime. Now we’re always available to take that urgent call or act on that last-minute demand. (7) Then there is the endless pressure of feeling we need to keep up with our gadgets’ latest technological developments. (8) For example, it’s not sufficient to use your cell phone for phone calls. Now you must learn to use the phone for text-messaging and downloading games. It’s not enough to take still photos with your digital camera. You should know how to shoot ultra-high-speed fast-action clips. In other words, if it’s been more than ten minutes since you’ve updated your technology, you’re probably behind.
    (9) Tension, the third major culprit behind our epidemic of anger, is intimately connected with our lack of time and the pressures of technology. Merely our chronic exhaustion and our frustration in the face of a bewildering array of technologies would be enough to cause our stress levels to skyrocket, but we are dealing with much more. (10) Our tension is often fueled by a reserve of anger that might be the result of a critical boss, marital discord, or a general sense of being stupid and inadequate in the face of the demands of modern life. (11) And along with the challenges of everyday life, we now live with a widespread fear of such horrors as terrorist acts, global warming, and antibiotic-resistant diseases. Our sense of dread may be out of proportion to actual threats because of technology’s ability to so constantly bombard us with worrisome information. Twenty-four hours a day news stations bring a stream of horror into our living rooms. As we work on our computers, headlines and graphic images are never more than a mouse-click away.
    Adding it all together—our feeling of never having enough time; the chronic aggravation caused by technology; our endless, diffuse sense of stress—and we become time bombs waiting to explode. Our angry outbursts may be briefly satisfying, but afterwards we are left feeling—well, like jerks. Worse, flying off the handle is a self-perpetuating behavior. Brad Bushman, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, says, "Catharsis is worse than useless." (12) Bushman’s research has shown that when people vent their anger, they actually become more, not less, aggressive. (13-1) Furthermore, the unharnessed venting of anger may actually do us physical harm. The vigorous expression of anger pumps adrenaline into our system and raises our blood pressure, setting the stage for heart attacks and strokes. (13-2) Frequently angry people have even been shown to have higher cholesterol levels than even-tempered individuals.
    How to deal with our anger?
    Unfortunately, the culprits behind much of our anger are not likely to resolve themselves anytime soon. So what can we do to deal with anger?
    According to Carol, author of Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, (14) the keys to dealing with anger are common sense and patience. She points out that almost no situation is improved by an angry outburst. A traffic jam, a frozen computer, or a misplaced set of car keys are annoying. To act upon the angry feelings those situations provoke, however, is an exercise in futility. Shouting, fuming, or leaning on the car horn won’t make traffic begin to flow, the screen unlock, or keys materialize.
    Patience, on the other hand, is a highly practical virtue. People who take the time to cool down before responding to an anger-producing situation are far less likely to say or do something they will regret later. Any emotional arousal will simmer down if you just wait long enough. When you are stuck in traffic, in other words, turn on some soothing music, breathe deeply, and count to ten—or thirty or forty, if need be.
    (15) Experts who have studied anger also encourage people to cultivate activities that effectively vent their anger. For some people, it’s reading the newspaper or watching TV, while others need more active outlets, such as using a treadmill, taking a walk, hitting golf balls, or working out with a punching bag. People who succeed in calming their anger can also enjoy the satisfaction of having dealt positively with their frustrations.
    So today, we have talked about three causes of our anger, the bad result of our outburst of anger, two keys to dealing with it and some practical solutions to it. Thank you for listening.