CoffeeTime: “WANT MORE ENERGY? GET ANGRY”

Listless, undriven? Feel like you need motivation just to get out of bed or roll off your couch? 

One sure-fire way to feel a spark of enthusiasm and vinegar that courses through your mind and body is to feel abrupt uncontrolled anger. Suddenly your body comes alive, with each nerve ending standing up and saluting everything in your path. Out of nowhere, your energy level explodes as if you had swallowed five monster energy drinks at once. Your brain begins firing on all cylinders, and your mouth obligingly opens wide to deliver exploding bombs of fury that are guaranteed to singe the hair off of a gorilla. 

The downside of all this? The shot of adrenaline that created the explosion of “That’s not right, say something now!” eventually wears off. Then you have to deal with the aftermath. And that’s not pretty most of the time.

It’s not uncommon for people to experience a physical let-down, as if a balloon suddenly was pricked with holes and lost all its air. “I don’t know why, but I am so exhausted!” And unfortunately, that loss of energy to do physical things affects the other areas of their life. Kids hungry? “Just go get a bowl of cold cereal, honey.”  The boss at your job needs you to go the extra mile at work this evening? “I am so tempted to blow it all off and take a sick day instead.” Housecleaning that you promised yourself you would get done that day? “Who am I kidding? I couldn’t care less if all the cockroaches within a thirty-mile radius decide to take up residence with me.”

And then there is the emotional downside of an anger explosion. Guilt for losing control of your temper…again. Frustration, if you didn’t get the perfect results you were wanting. Feelings of helplessness, if your delivery of verbal cannonballs causes things in the situation to get even worse. Alienation, if the recipient of your ammo decides that knuckling under and going along with you just isn’t in the plan.

And if all this happens, then you run the risk of a “Free Three-For-One Special, But Could Cost You Everything” in your life – high blood pressure, a vague or not-so-vague sense of anxiety, and depression that overlays everything you do. Eventually leading you to ill health sometime in the future. 

‘Tain’t worth it. Hours of exquisite energy and drive, but resulting in years of physical and emotional problems just isn’t a good trade-off.

Better solution? Do the hard work. Find the reasons inside yourself that cause you to react so violently and so self-abusively. Then go a step further, and begin to discover ways to resolve all those triggers in your life. Learn the value of deep breathing and attempting to see the other side of the pancake, no matter how thin it is. Then you can hopefully have discussions instead of explosions.

Now…if only I could remember to take my own advice.