Читать книгу Managing Anger: Simple Steps to Dealing with Frustration and Threat - Gael Lindenfield, Gael Lindenfield - Страница 21

There are many bodily states which may predispose us to use our anger response more than perhaps we would normally do. I am not just referring to the most obvious examples such as brain damage, dementia, severe diabetes or epilepsy, but also of more common everyday conditions such as headaches and stomach pains. (The latter are often caused by the stresses of normal growth transitions, sometimes by disease, and sometimes by self-inflicted habits and practices.) Because our bodies are going through some biochemical change or have their energies already overstretched coping with some internal or external stress, the effect is to lower our resistance to frustration. For example, most people will, in the course of their life, have direct or indirect experience of anger and irritation being ‘nearer the surface’ when:

– over-tired

– very hungry

– going through hormonal changes such as those which take place at puberty, pre-menstruation, the birth of a baby or menopause

– recovering from flu

– physically craving for a substance to which they are addicted, such as nicotine, alcohol, caffeine or any other drug

– ‘on a high’ from over-using any such drug or substance

– suffering from acute pain

– ‘worn down’ by chronic pain

– in a state of sexual frustration.

We must stop blaming our bodies for our anger, for they merely act as vessels for containing it, or vehicles for expressing it – and we can use our head to rule either function!

We commonly hear the physical condition itself being blamed for an outburst of anger or irritability – ‘It’s just her monthlies’; ‘It was the whisky talking’; ‘It’s only the baby blues’; ‘He’ll be alright when he’s had his dinner’. But, of course, not everyone with PMT or toothache or six pints inside them will get angry in response to frustration. The state of our health is only ever part of the explanation of our expression and management of anger.