YoGA FoR AnGeR MAnAGeMent

22 | Yoga for Anger Management
BODILY REACTIONS WITH ANGER
Anger is an emotion which all of us are very familiar with.
Particularly in the city of Bangalore or in any of the other metropolitan
cities of India, people are familiar with traffic jams.
So just imagine a scene like this. You are stuck in traffic jam.
You are in a hurry to go somewhere and someone comes across
the road in the wrong direction and you feel annoyed. Now
you have two choices. You can either go through all the experiences
of anger and express anger or you may not go through
all the experiences of anger but express anger. What would be
the difference? In both cases if you express anger, the person
would get your message and he may make the necessary correction.
If you yourself actually experience anger there are a
number of facts behind it and we will discuss here.
What really happens to our body when we are angry? In order
to understand this, we have to go back in time millions of
years and think of all Stone Age man. Stone Age Man did not
face threats like crossing the road or angry boss or deadline.
Stone Age Man faced threats like facing a wild animal, may be
a fight with another Stone Age Man and his body has to gear
up over the challenges by either of the two ways i.e., fighting
or by fleeing from the situation by running away. Now in order
to fight or flee there are certain changes which occur in the
body. Just think what you would need to do to either fight or
flee. Well, you will require more Blood Sugar and more energy.
Blood Pressure has to go up to see that enough blood reaches
Yoga in Education for Total Personality Development SERIES - 8