ANGRY about EVERYTHING | Why am I so angry all the time?

Why am i so angry all the time now?

I don't know what we're yelling about!

Where are the turtles?

Loud noises!

You read something in an email.

Sorry dude missed your texts

I assumed we'd meet at the bar.

Whatever I don't care. Whatever I don't care? And smoke comes out your ears.

You're walking and you see somebody doing something they shouldn't be and you want to shout at them. Oh yes!!!

That's what i should have said!!!

Someone you like says something

That says decaf. You got me decaf?

Oh yeah there's been some sort of mix up there.

It just makes you really upset.

Why am i so angry all the time now?

It has to do with the way our brains handle stress,

and something called adrenal activation. In this video, I'm going to share

a little bit of the neuroscience of anger and give  you some strategies for decreasing volatility and finding a little bit more patience with yourself  and others

in this time of dramatic stress and disruption.

Now put that thing back where it  came from or so help me!

I think it'll help if we understand a little bit more about how our brains work.

The first thing you need to understand

about stress and anger is that it's there for a reason.

We become agitated because of perceived threats

and we have evolved this system so that  we can deal with dangers that are around us.

Some of these dangers are very short-term

but some of them are lasting.

So our brains have a system for reacting

very very quickly to a stressor  and then returning to a baseline level of calm.

We have a second system which triggers  something

called the autonomic nervous system

which allows us to stay stressed for a longer period of time.

As i've explained in other videos,

stress simply means that we're perceiving  the threat is bigger than our resources

And when we have many many things that are outside of our control,

we become stressed.

It's our brain and body's way of preparing  us

to deal with this threat. The problem is that

in this circumstance we're not in a situation  of a quick

attack by some tiger

we're in a situation where we're in a long-term prolonged

stress environment and so we need to manage our brain's automatic reaction

and help ourselves  and each other through this period of time.

I want to remind you that anger is not actually  something negative there's nothing wrong with  it

As Aristotle said, the real challenge is to be  angry with the right person, to the right degree,

at the right time. To use our anger in a  way that's productive

When things go wrong,

Anger is there.

This is Anger. He will make  sure the world knows Anger is in control

But what you really need to watch  out for is when he's OUT of control.

Anger is a message that says i want to move forward

but something's blocking me

and the purpose of anger, is to focus our attention on that obstacle

and give us the energy to push through it.

So it's actually really valuable  and it's connected to motivation and drive.

It's connected to a sense of achievement.  It's connected to our wanting to move.

The problem is when we misdirect that anger

and we're really angry about this big thing over here

but it's easier to take it out on this person here.

Oh shut up, just shut up. You are unimportant  okay, and you have suckered on to me like

some sort of a car window Garfield.

We're really angry about this crisis that we're in,

but it's easier to take it out and direct it at this person who's close to us.

And you my friend are responsible for delaying my rendezvous with Star Command.

You are a toy!!

You weren't the real Buzz Lightyear!

You're an action figure, you are a child's play thing!

You are a sad strange little man.

And that's very destructive we need to apply our anger where it's suited.

We need to be  angry about the big problems and the injustices

and the ways that people are not  taking care of each other and our world.

That deserves our anger.

And if we can galvanize and use our anger towards those big problems

that actually is empowering for us. And we  feel a sense of agency. And in that agency,

we're directing and using our anger for  the right things and we feel a lot better.

So essentially you can think about stress  as an alert meter.

As we move closer and closer to red alert,

as our stress level goes up,

we'll become more perceptive we become more likely to see something as a threat

We're in the green zone and we're not very stressed and we read something in an email.

We say "oh that's kind of lame but it's no big deal."

When we're in the red zone, that very  same sentence in the email

causes us to go into high reactivity alert.

It's because we're in a heightened state of sensitivity.

Now what's interesting is when we're in a volatile  circumstance,

when there's threats all around us,

and people around us are more agitated,

we also become more agitated because emotions are social.

It's part of the way that we work together as pack animals. And in this context of emotional

volatility in this context of polarization we're much more quick to go into the stress reaction.

Just keep moving and don't  look down,

Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.

Day after day of this long year we keep  activating and reactivating this adrenal system.

The adrenal system draws a lot of energy  from our body. It's preparing us to fight,

flee, or freeze. So every day we're activating and reactivating the system. And it's exhausting.

but it's also pushing us to perceive these relatively minor things as big threats.

We're over estimating the threat level

because we're in the red zone and we're staying in the red zone.

And what happens for people who stay in the zone for a long time

is post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic stress disorder.

And there are  many brain injuries and psychological illnesses

that are related to prolonged and deep stress.

So it's very important for us to learn tools

to come back down out of this red zone and find a place of more equanimity and more balance.

Because when we're angry all the time, we're affecting ourselves,

we're affecting each other

and we're affecting this context

we're setting ourselves and others up for greater and greater volatility.

We have a model called the reaction cycle

which helps explain what's happening in this process.

Basically there are three stages in the reaction cycle.

We get ready for the reaction.

We call that the setup phase.

And in the setup phase, it's our lack of sleep,

it's our lack of exercise,

it's what when we're not eating well when we're  not taking care of ourselves

we're not going to church or we're not meditating.

There are all of these things that might put us into a condition

to be more reactive. That's the  setup. And then there's a trigger.

Something happens, you read an email, you  hear something,

somebody tells you something,

and then you interpret that trigger.

You interpret it based on your current circumstance.

Again your stress level, your emotion level, is a kind of filter. It's like a pair of glasses

and as you get more reactive and volatile, the  glasses that you're wearing are glasses about

looking for these threats. Looking  for things that make you volatile.

And so we move into this interpretation phase.  It only lasts about a quarter of a second,

but in that quarter of a second we're assessing  "How dangerous is this?' "How big a threat is  this?"

and then we begin our reaction.

We start producing these chemicals in our hypothalamus.

They're released through the pituitary gland.  They start affecting all of the cells in our body.

We then go into an escalation phase,  and we start saying to ourselves

"this is terrible" "this is bad" "there's nothing  i can do,"

and now we become in a heightened state

of reactivity. And in this  heightened state of reactivity

we're going around the cycle again.

And now we're set up with more readiness for the next reaction.

These three stages also give us a clue about  how we can get out of the reaction cycle.

In each stage, there's a basic tool that we can use to help us shift

and move out of the reaction cycle and back towards balance.

So in the setup phase,

what we're doing is we're putting ourselves out of balance.

We're moving into a situation  where we're more likely to appraise something as a threat.

The secret in this stage is simply  noticing

and saying "oh i'm a little bit out of balance here.

I didn't sleep very well last night. I usually go for a walk in the morning

and I didn't go for a walk. I was late and so  I didn't eat breakfast

and I'm a little bit discombobulated.

I'm a little bit in a state where I might be more likely to see this thing

that normally isn't a big deal as a big deal."

If we can notice it before we have the reaction

it's relatively easy to deal with it. This  is where a little mindful breathing,

a glass of cold water, literally going and smelling a flower, going for a little walk, stretching,

something that helps us shift physically  mentally and emotionally

back towards balance.

Appreciation is incredibly powerful in this stage.

And just noticing even though there's a lot of crappy things going on

there are still things that we can appreciate in our lives and in the world.

The second stage as I said is only a quarter of a second long,

and so it makes it very difficult to do something in that quarter second.

But what i suggest you try, is just observing.

Notice yourself reacting "Oh there i go. I'm getting upset." And the more you practice noticing and just having like 10 percent

of your brain holding back to observe yourself in this process,

the more you practice that, the more likely you are to be able to notice it before the trigger.

And then in the final phase,

the escalation phase,

this is where the six second pause comes in.

Literally doing something as simple as six math problems

or counting to six in a foreign language

or alphabetizing six places you wish you could travel right now.

This will shift your brain activation by

engaging your cortical or cognitive brain for six seconds

and allow the flood to subside a little bit.

Perhaps the most important  strategy in moving out of the reaction cycle

is remembering that you have choice.

You might not  have total freedom ,

but you have some choice.

And when you notice that you have some choice about how you think,

how you act, and how you feel,

that recognition itself gives you freedom to  say: I can choose something different right now.

This process of noticing our feelings and  harnessing and directing these feelings

is something we call navigating emotions.

And one of the essential pieces of navigating emotions

is to validate. Say yes that is what i'm feeling.

And I'm feeling it for a reason. There's a lot  of reasons why i'm so angry all the time now.

Just recognizing that, and saying

that is an appropriate feeling given the circumstance.

And now that you know that

you have choice what are you going to do?