What is Anger?
Uploaded by Chrissy1103 on Feb 04, 2002
What is anger, an emotion, a response, or a way of life? In some cases all three may be a reality. According to Charles Spielberger, PhD, anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage". It's that feeling of your blood boiling, the heat of your body rising steadily until you think you may explode. Your head popping right off of your body and shooting like a rocket into space! Although this is an exageration, why do we feel this way sometimes?
The biological reason for anger is quite simple, it is our body's way of preparing us for fight or flight. The body uses anger to fight for survival. our heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and the levels of our energy hormones, adrenaline and noradrenaline, heighten. Other reasons for anger vary by individual. In recent years, traffic and other drivers have made some people so angry, we have coined the term "road rage". Other people become so disgusted by the slow and leisurely pace of your walk at the mall that they scurry around you and grunt as if you've violated some sort of implied mall speed limit. Upon answering the phone while writing this paper I was greeted by a young lady conducting a survey. With no end in sight to this barrage of questions about frozen chicken, I could feel my anger growing after 10 minutes. I even considered hanging up on the poor girl. Why did I get so angry? Maybe I felt my time was far more valuable than her time. That can't be true though, we are both human beings. What makes my time or me as a person any better than this woman? I felt she was wasting my time, after all, I did have a paper to write. After having this converstion with myself, I realized she was just trying to make a living. In the end, I completed her survey and she was extremely gracious. I got the feeling I was her first completed survey for that day.
In order to quell my anger, I had to stop and think. Why was I getting upset? Was it really such a problem for me to take 20 minutes of my precious time to help someone do their job? There are several ways to deal with anger when it rears its' ugly head. One is to...