Road Rage: Losing Control of Anger
The orange cones are out and the length of your morning commute just doubled. It’s summer in America when construction crews seem to shut down miles of highway to work on one tiny 10-foot section at a time. Slowly snaking traffic plays havoc with your schedule, creating stress and anxiety. You worry about being late for work or an appointment or picking up the kids from daycare; but you can’t make the traffic move any faster, which creates more stress. Then there are the annoying drivers who try to whiz past you on the berm, and those infuriating idiots who streak by in the ever-narrowing left lane to dart into line ahead of you. When traffic snarls, it’s not long before frustrated drivers start snarling too!
We call it road rage and make jokes about it, but mixing anger with highway traffic isn’t funny; it’s a dangerous combination and not just because it so often leads to traffic accidents. Anger makes your heart rate and blood pressure go up. Anger also increases the levels of your “energy” hormones, adrenalin and noradrenalin. While completely normal and entirely human, when anger gets out of hand it can be physically and psychologically destructive.
Aggression is the body’s instinctive response to anger. It’s an ingrained survival instinct that protects us from threat and allows us to defend ourselves, our family and our home — our car — from attack. Anger is a basic survival skill that ensured our ancestors could escape wild beasts and protect themselves from marauding tribes. In today’s world where the predators are less physical and more complex, raw anger can be more of a hindrance than a help in navigating life.
Some people are quicker to anger than others and some lose control of their anger more easily than others. Researchers believe genetics may be a factor, but they are also looking for a physiological trigger, most likely a portion of the brain that governs anger or a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes some people to act more violently than others. The laws and customs of modern society limit the rein we can give our anger, but events, people and orange cones on a crowded summer highway can send anger spinning out of control if we’re not careful. Today, learning to control anger has become a necessary survival skill.
Next time: Learning to Control Anger
Psychology Plays Role in When You File Taxes
Today’s the day Americans pay the piper. April 15. The last day to pay your income taxes. Whether you filed your taxes weeks ago or plan to join the last minute queue at your local post office is as much a function of psychology as finances.
Financial experts say individual cash flow and return expectations govern how early individuals file their tax forms. People who expect a refund, particularly a large refund, tend to file early. Those with higher incomes and those who owe Uncle Sam money tend to file later. But, particularly this year, psychological forces are skewing normal filing trends.
Psychology often trumps financial considerations in determining when people file their taxes, contends Dr. Steven Krebaum, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “Generally, it may be that psychology plays a larger role than economics in decisions of when to file,” Krebaum said in an April 14, 2009 article on UPI.com. More people may be filing later than usual this year out of fear or anger, he suggested.
Fear. Difficulty facing the reality of personal finances after the decimation of investment and retirement accounts has caused many taxpayers to take a “head in the sand” approach and file tax forms later than usual. Putting off filing is a way of avoiding the harsh reality they expect is waiting on the bottom line of their tax form. Unfortunately, not knowing where you stand financially only heightens financial anxiety. It’s better to get it over with. Knowing where you stand financially allows you to act, and action decreases anxiety.
Anger. The government’s bailout of Wall Street, AIG executive excesses, foreclosures, rising personal bankruptcies, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, devaluing of retirement funds, loss of personal investments, skyrocketing unemployment — there’s a lot to be angry about and people are focusing their anger on the government. The feeling that government bailouts are being made at their expense has created a taxpayer backlash. Angry taxpayers who chafe at giving the government any more money are paying their taxes at the last possible minute. It’s a legal way of expressing their displeasure.
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