Take a Deep Breath!

Take a deep breath. Has someone ever said that to you? How did it make you feel, did you calm down, did you take a deep breath? What about if they placed the word 'just' at the beginning of that sentence - "Just take a deep breath". Did it make you do so? The person who said this to you is right, when angered you do need to take a deep breath. You just don't need someone else to tell you.

When we get angered, our brain sends off a warning signal to alert us of the possibility of danger ahead. This stems from our well-known fight or flight phenomenon. This signal increases our heart rate, adrenaline is released, cortisol thickens our blood, our breathing becomes shallow, our blood pressure drops and acid is injected into your stomach.

Our brain works on electrical impulses sent through neurotransmitters, or neurons for short. With the thickening of the blood through the release of cortisol into the blood these neurons have difficulty in operating effectively. Time will seem to slow, that’s because your thoughts have slowed. Your reaction time is also slowed. That is the reason why you should never say the first thing that comes into your head when you are under pressure, particularly when angered, because it is usually the wrong thing to say. It’s not your fault, it’s your brains fault!

To control the impulse to say something you may later regret, take a long, slow, deep, and importantly a quiet, deep breath. This will slow your heart rate, get oxygen into your bloodstream which will dilute the cortisol and you will think much clearer. Some will tell you to count to 10 to control your anger in a conversation, the problem with this is that while you are thinking about counting you aren't focusing on the 'danger' in front of you. The person who just wants you to take a deep breath.