More people appear to be experiencing anger today than ever before. Stress is increasing to such levels in our modern day lives that it’s impacting on making us even angrier. Our main stream media is obsessed at incessantly broadcasting images of violence, anger, war and fear ranging from children’s cartoon, the internet, video games, magazines right through to block buster movies. Anger is amongst the most dominant emotion in our modern day lives.
Anger has energy of its own, during periods of anger we tend to “lose” awareness of what is actually going on and become totally dominated and controlled by anger itself. When anger is articulated it is partly intended to show someone else that they have misbehaved according to one’s perception and to get them to withdraw, apologise or to show onlookers where to direct their blame and may be persisted until that message gets across (or, more accurately, until interpersonal feedback indicating that it has got across is received).
Many people find themselves getting angry on a daily basis and over events that may appear to be petty of trivial to others. Anger has an direct impact on physical health, increasing blood pressure, unbalancing the body’s hormonal system to such an extend that 5 minutes of anger can disrupt the body’s immune system for more than 6 hours. It is no surprise those who are angry are most likely to suffer from Coronary heart disease, strokes and heart attacks .
Mediation has been used for centuries to help cultivate a healthy mind and body. In recent years mindfulness meditation and transcendental meditation (Mantra or sound meditation) has been shown to effectively deal with a whole range of destructive emotions, including very successful management of anger.
EXERCISES:
Mindfulness (by Dav Panesar)
Symran (by Dav Panesar)
Self-compassion (by Dav Panesar)
