With Only Two Months To Go Until The Holidays We're Angrier Than We Ever Were … What's Going On ?

Cleveland Clinic psychologist Scott Bea, stated in a recent article that when it comes to anger, it can be a different story for different people. According to Dr. Bea, anger is often driven by the perception of threat, and we have a tendency to perceive things as more dangerous today, than they actually are, because of the persistence of media and news. Dr. Bea admits that we don’t talk about anger much – we don’t teach how to recognize or deal with it; and anger is a reflexive emotion, so it can be hard to proactively manage it.

“When our emotions are enflamed, logic and reasoning kind of go to the wayside, and when we’re really anxious – small provocations and upsets can really throw us over this threshold where we’re now feeling anger and maybe behaving angrily,” he said. Dr. Bea said it’s good to work on our ‘emotional shock absorbers’, either through self-awareness or with the help of a professional, in order to become more resilient without getting too agitated. Another way to help control our anger reflex is to give it a name – by labeling what is making us angry. If we can actually label it, or name it, very carefully, that expression is called anger granularity – the more refined and precise we can be about what’s creating our anger, or the source of our anger, we can generally break it down into more bite-sized pieces, feel a little less daunted by the experience,”

We hope our clients keep this in mind and be kind to each other as the holidays draw near.