Anger is bad for your Health ..... Leave Rage Alone

Anger Management classes!! Drug addiction Re-Hab!! Sex-addiction (Eh?) Re-Hab !!!

Such things would not have been heard of 50 years ago. People were too busy rebuilding their lives after a World war and mourning the millions who had died.

Are we heading for an "I'm not responsible for anything" culture?

Is ther really an alcoholic gene? A violent temper gene? A bullying gene?

Having lost my temper many times when I was younger, I've often been curious as to how much of our personality is derived from our family genes and how much is learned behavoiur..

One thing is for sure . Getting really angry till one is red in the face is going to send your blood pressure sky-high, and that's bad for you.

Many women I know have screamed loudly and thrown things at their husbands, pots, pans, the best china .......I could never quite see the point of that even when in a temper. I knew I'd only have to clean it all up afterwards and chances are you'll break something precious.

I mean something material apart from the break it could make in your realationship.

Often , though we forget how much harm we can do to ourselves . "Let anger alone and leave rage" says one of the psalms in the Bible. (They knew it wasn't good even way back then )

                    It's a pity I didn't follow that thought the last time I really lost my temper.. Honestly an adult, middle-aged woman, supposedly known as "sensible",  I yelled and stamped my foot like a 2 year old. Unfortunately there were at least 15 people in the room at the time.

The moment the foot-stamping began ALL the men as  if superglued to eachother edged out of the patio doors onto the Terrace , while the women simultaneously circled me.  . It must have looked as though it had been choreographed by an expert..

I had no idea I could frighten men out of the door. !!!!

                    The point is, this modern , hectic, competitive world makes it difficult at times to remain calm. It's easy for anger, frustration , even sheer rage to take over our better judgement.

"Road Rage" is a good example. The first time I heard of it , I found it truly funny. To think that anyone could get into such a rage over a parking spot that he would physically fight over it seemed ridiculous.  Now , I find that road rage is not funny at all. People have died because of  someone elses' complete lack of self-control.

So is the lack of self-control inherited?  Can every bad trait be put down to our genes?

In my mind some people choose to be downright  awkward. Have you ever heard the expression,   "He or she could start an argument in an empty house?" We have one or two of those in our family. Walk away, I say.(preferably without stamping your foot)

                Every  family has members who are similar in temperament. , talents etc., but we do all of us have free-will. So even if we've inherited an 'anger' gene does it mean we have to be an easily angered person all the time ? Or can we take charge of our own personalities, the way we like to take charge of our own lives?

Who would you prefer to spend time with.......A person who thinks he is always right and gets angry if anyone disagrees with him,  or a person who is willing to yield.? I don't mean "a push-over" , someone too soft, but a person who can disagree with you in a mild-mannered way and leaves space in the conversation to listen to others' opinions?

Would you prefer to spend time with someone funny, inoffensive, who always looks on the bright side of life, or an extremely intelligent person, someone you could learn from, but is so  pedantic that he never even considers that there could BE another opinion from his.?

Is there a pedantic gene too?  I hope not. I've worked hard at trying to be a nicer person than comes naturally. A lot of the time it works.

                      I recently read an article about an SS officer in Hitlers' army.  He'd been 11 years old when Hitler came to power and was taught all the Nazi ideology, from a young boy in the Hitler youth to a young man in an academy for men who would occupy senior military posts.

He said that he once heard Hitler scream publicly at another politician and it made him feel uneasy. Despite all his training he felt it was bad behaviour on Hitlers' part.(the mind boggles at this man's idea of bad behaviour from the Fuhrer, much worse to come, obviously).

Nevertheless this man was a good soldier serving his country, he thought.

Soon, this young man was transferred to a concentration camp as assistant to an SS General and one day an inmate came to treat a minor injury that he'd suffered. "Good morning Sir", said the inmate.

The soldier queried why the inmate had not greeted him with "Heil Hitler"?

"Because of what it means" answered the inmate

"I am a christian and believe my salvation comes from Christ alone, therefore I cannot bring myself to say salvation will come from Hitler,".

The SS officer thought it was a reasonable answer and let it pass.

After the war this SS officer who had been indoctrinated from an early age with Hitlers ideas, left army life , got married to a christian and became one himself.   What changed him?

Somewhere inside of him there had to be a kind, tolerant man not a racist, or a warmonger, not even a violent person.. Yet he did all the things that soldiers have to do in wartime.

He decided to change.

At the end of the article he said that he felt Hitler was the one who demanded 'blind obedience'  and being a christian did not make him feel that way, .He feels that now he is in control of his own life and does things out of love.

If only we could all of us try to change a little for the better each day, not only would the world be a better place but our health would improve.

If we daily attempt to be calmer, our blood pressure will lower. I know there are other factors involved with high blood pressure and I am not a doctor. Nevertheless, making small changes to our personalities is definitely possible. We don't have to give in to the idea of an inherited flaw making us what we are.

How we react to events is more important than what happens to us. I'm still trying to react without anger to everything. I know it works because I haven't stamped my foot for about 3 years.

Eat as healthily as you can afford. Be loving not hating. Stay calm as much as possible. All these things can change your life for the better.

(Sadly we can't change anybody else, but that's another story.)