Anger: A waste of emotion

You feel the heat crawl up your face, your voice automatically rises a few decibels and before you know it, you are an entirely different person. When anger arrives, it leaves no room for anything else. 

Especially at the workplace, the emotion is a dangerous thing to possess. Explore the damage caused by wasted emotions. Discover how you can channel your emotions into more productive outlets.

Assuming a person stays angry for even five minutes every day, he or she loses out on 109,500 seconds of happiness in a year!

According to the British Association of Anger Management, an average Joe is stressed and angry from dawn to dusk. How many seconds of peace of mind would that cost? Well, that is best left unanswered!

Some of the everyday energy drainers include:

Office rage

45 percent staff regularly loses their temper at work. This undoubtedly leads us to other forms of office rage whereby people get annoyed with as little as their co-workers clutter or even taking stationery from their desk and not returning it! The research further shows that 60 per cent employees are dissatisfied by volume of work, level of pay and lack of praise. 

A soaring 50 per cent workers dislike talking loudly in the office and get easily irritated by people who gossip and spread rumours.

PC rage

50 per cent of office workers react to problems with their computer by either abusing colleagues, hitting the computer, screaming, shouting or hurling parts of the PC.But this doesn’t seem enough and a further 62 percent swear or scream at their computer. A staggering 53 per cent of network managers say PC problems trigger violence from users.

Road rage

For a change, only 1 in 140 drivers feel like doing nothing to their car or while driving when faced with anger or stress behind the wheel. But realistically 90 per cent of drivers have experienced road rage in the form of rash driving, swearing, headlight flashing and deliberate obstruction. On a lighter note, 22 per cent make angry ex-pressions and 15 per cent mutter under their breath.

Shopping rage

Out of the 18.6 billion hours that people spend in shopping in Britain, 3 billion hours are only wasted in queuing up. This inevitably gives rise to a number of complaints for poor service and also people admitting that shopping has become stressful as it triggers arguments with their partners. No prize for guessing that, 50 per cent of shoppers become angry at being unable to park.

Classroom rage

Due to the deteriorating manners of youngsters, teachers are faced with abusive language and threats of violence on a daily basis and a shocking 40 per cent of teachers have faced some physical abuse in their career.

Phone rage

Alexander Graham Bell wouldn’t be happy to know that 65 per cent of people are more likely to express anger over the phone compared to 26 per cent in writing and 9 per cent face to face.

Off the hook

The most useful technology of all times, ‘the internet’ seems to be another common reason for getting irritated. About 71 per cent of users get frustrated searching the net and 12 minutes is all it takes to trigger the rage! 

With such levels of irritation in every household, it doesn’t come as a surprise that every 1 in 3 people do not meet or speak to their neighbours. Moreover it seems to be taking a toll on working parents, as 87 per cent admit to shouting at their children due to stress.

Although anger might sometimes seem inevitable, it is necessary to have a control over your emotions. The main reason for it being the tremendous harm caused to our health. 

The daily rush hour driving itself causes increased anxieties. An alarming 72 per cent of office workers drink too much coffee to cope, which leads to hyperactivity and increased blood pressure.

Stress has become so common that its existence is bigger than common cold! The effects of these stresses include low energy, feeling irritated, food allergies, skin rash, difficulty sleeping, head or neck aches and anxiety attacks.

As per the American Medical Journal, 10 minutes of laughter drops blood pressure by 10 to 20 millimetres. So, say goodbye to anger and use that time to laugh.