Richard Hogan: Why we all lose our temper — and what it really means

"Modern life would drive you nuts, and anger is an important emotion to feel. It primes us to focus on what is troubling us, and how to fix it."

We’ve all been there; you’ve just placed the last item in the self-service check-out area, in whatever soulless place it is you go to procure your supplies. 

You’ve had a long wait because the person in front of you decided to put their trolley through the self-service area.

But you’re too kind to say anything. You’re more the grumble-to-yourself type of person. You’ve been waiting patiently, with your children, who have been tormenting you for another treat. 

You’ve been whispering to them through a smile about the trouble they are in when you get them home. 

Your heart rate is slightly increased. You might even be breathing a little heavier than usual, you notice your jaw is clenched. You’re tense, focusing on one small thing; will this hell ever end? 

But finally, you step up in front of this machine and go through the lifeless rigmarole of modern-day shopping. 

You place the last item on the machine, only to be told by an inanimate voice, ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’.

Oh boy, now you’re agitated, looking around for a human to end this misery. But she’s over chatting with some young fella. 

“Sorry,” you say a little louder than you had anticipated. “Can you help me here?”

Now everyone is looking at you, because they picked up the anger in your voice. She rolls her eyes at her love interest, strolls over to your machine, scans some barcode while completely ignoring you exist. “There you go,” she says, walking away. 

You could have been standing there naked and she wouldn’t have noticed. It’s at this moment you realise you are using a ‘card only’ machine. And you brought cash for this magnificent adventure.

Mother of divine Jesus. Every nerve in your body is on fire as you want to let out a roar, or hit the machine, or run away from the situation.

Even the most mindful master among us, those gurus of peaceful, transcendent bliss lose their cool from time to time. We all lose our temper.

Modern life would drive you nuts, and anger is an important emotion to feel. It primes us to focus on what is troubling us, and how to fix it. 

So, losing your temper isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if it is constant in your life, well then it can significantly impact on your mental and physical health.

Knowing how to deal with your anger is really important if you want to enjoy life. The first thing in learning how to manage it, is understanding what anger is about. 

Our ancient ancestors needed it far more than we do today. There were plenty of more dodgy things to run from or to fight with than in our current environment. 

But our brain doesn’t know that; it only has a stimulus to process. Whether that’s a woolly mammoth or a colleague saying something derogatory about you in work, the brain primes the body to respond in the same way.

Our anger is triggered through a complex series of events that take place in the brain and body. First of all we have the source of the anger, disappointment, rejection, judgment, fear, injustice, etc. 

Whatever it is that sparks our anger this activates the amygdala before you’re even aware of it.

The amygdala is part of the early human brain, and it is all about threat detection and survival. 

The interesting thing here is that when the amygdala is aroused, the part of the brain that made us formidable as a species and which developed later, the prefrontal cortex, this is the rational, thoughtful, judgmental, logical part of the brain. This shuts down. It goes offline.

The problem is that the amygdala has a head start. That’s why people do terrible things when they are angry, and regret them later. How many of us have sent a nasty text when we felt hurt? Only to regret it when we cooled down.

The amygdala then activates the hypothalamus, which signals the pituitary gland to discharge a cacophony of hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline.

NOW the body is ready to defend itself. The hormone norepinephrine is released, which plays a role in mood regulation and attention.

That is why we often struggle to focus on anything else except what is provoking our anger. We can become narrow in our attention, and we can launch out terrible barbs that we know will really hurt the person that we are focused on. 

The more we lose our temper, the more we wire the brain to become hyper-reactive to negative stimuli.

This can actually short-circuit the prefrontal cortex and disrupt its connectivity. I often see this in children. I call it ‘the tiger in the car park’.

We have all been to the zoo, as we are walking around and we see a tiger, we don’t run screaming. Our prefrontal cortex comes online and informs us, there is glass between you and the tiger, you are in a zoo, and everything is OK. So you calmly look at the tiger.

But if you went into the car park and as you are opening the door, that very same tiger is standing next to you, that frontal cortex would not be online, your body would need a lot of energy to move quickly away from that tiger.

In my experience, children and adults, too, have a disruption in their connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. 

So, they can’t tell what is real threat or not, so they live in a hyper state of vigilance, overreacting to any negative stimulus they encounter. Constantly getting angry and reacting very negatively to normal situations.

Next week, I will outline what you can do to help develop healthy coping mechanisms for your children’s anger, and how to improve your own relationship with anger.