Anger, a New Age ailment?

Not long ago, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was asked at one of his yoga workshops, “When do you get angry?” He thought for while and finally responded, “It’s been ten years since it happened last!”

The great and the good, including Maulana Azad, Arun Gandhi, Osho, Khwaja Hasan Sani Nizami, Swami Ram Devji and Robert Prechter have long taught – by parable and often times by example – the need to control one’s anger. Mahatma Gandhi's fifth grandson, Arun, says that terrorism too can be controlled using techniques of anger management and community building. Gandhi, who recently resigned from the MK Gandhi Institute for Peace in Rochester in the US, said that most wars and acts of terror occur because of uncontrolled and mismanaged anger.

Terrorism may be a larger issue but even in our daily lives, it is clear that people are increasingly angry. Why is that? Anger can be caused by external or internal events. You could be angry with a specific person, such as a co-worker or supervisor. You could be furious about an event, say, a traffic jam or a cancelled flight. Or your anger could be caused by worrying about and brooding on your personal problems. Traumatic memories can also trigger angry feelings.

But the sad truth is that fury and intolerance bear away a man’s good reason. It is true that intolerance is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one. In fact, intolerance is the fret, fury and frenzy of the soul. Intolerance is hard to combat because it is willing to buy revenge with a whole life. But controlling the intolerance of one angry moment may mean avoiding a lifetime’s remorse. Shakespeare was entirely accurate when he wrote in Coriolanus: "Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself !" To be angry is to take revenge upon ourselves for the faults of others.

Anger can surface without warning in the most loving and long-standing relationships. When a childhood friend suddenly flares up over something totally innocuous, it is better to ignore the angry present and focus instead on the harmonious past. Anger makes people insensible, be it a good friend or a sibling.
Psychologist Charles Spielberger, who specializes in the study of anger, says it is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage." As with other emotions, anger is accompanied by physiological and biological changes. When we get angry, our heart rate goes up and the blood pressure rises, as do energy hormone levels, pumping adrenaline and noradrenaline into the system.

Is anger becoming a 21st-century affliction? Some say these changing times make people workaholic and egotistic. Modern life may see many more expressions of anger than before, but could it be that we simply know about them now because the world’s information flow has multiplied to enormous levels? Or could there have been lots of unexpressed anger in earlier times?

Medically speaking, people who remain intolerant and angry most of the time are most susceptible to hypertension and related heart/brain diseases. Re-living unsuccessful or humiliating situations over and over can prove bad for one’s health. Simply remembering an incident that once made you angry can be stressful for the heart.

Often, terrible hurt owing to intolerance takes just minutes to inflict but forgiving the perpetrator requires time. Initially, we experience negative feelings such as anger, sadness and shame. Then we try to make sense of what happened. Ultimately we learn to see the person who hurt us through new eyes.

So what is to be done to face angry people? The best way to feel better is the very opposite of revenge. It is saying the words, "I forgive you.'' That could be the most powerful thing we will ever do. Forgiving doesn't mean giving in. It means letting go.

Once we forgive, we are no longer emotionally handcuffed to the person who hurt us. When we forgive, we reclaim our power to choose.

One can express one’s anger, disappointment or intolerance with a trusted friend or counselor, giving us the strengthening experience of being heard. That is a way to let go of one’s feelings without the danger of saying or doing any thing we will later regret. It is the equivalent of punching a pillow. Keeping a journal could help.