Anger and Rants

                Anger breeds anger.  Have you ever noticed that someone who gets angry can go on a rant and become angrier?  They haven’t become angrier because someone did something else to upset them.  They became angrier because they started to remember past memories where they were angry.  People who are mad at you tend to bring up past experiences that only breed more anger.  This is defined as the mood congruency theory.

                Mood congruency theory states that when someone, such as a classmate, who gets angry at you, will be more likely to remember bad experiences with you rather than good ones.  In simple terms, if someone is mad at you, they will bring up only the bad memories of you.  This isn’t fair to the acceptors of this anger.

                How can you prevent mood congruency from happening to you?  If you become angry at someone, try to be consciously aware that you are getting angry.  If you are conscious of it, you are less likely to go with the norm and become angrier at the person because of past experiences.   Most anger management specialists recommend you do a stress reducing exercise like counting to ten.  These tactics allow your pre-frontal cortex to get back into the thought process.  Without calming down, the logical part of your brain will get less and less say about your words and actions.  Try to be conscious when you get angry at someone because if you don’t, your blood pressure will go up. Have a nice day :)    

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