The Anger Habit

Do you turn into a monster when you get angry? Photo by J Santascoy, T-shirt by Hans verschooten 

Anger is a seductive emotion because it can feel powerful to get angry. But the price we pay for spewing anger is high: loved ones may get scared, thinking turns muddy and the biochemical changes can be damaging, especially over time. 

Because the Technique is largely based on changing the way you think about situations and movement, it is a good tool to use to work with anger and other emotions.

Here are four steps to help you change the anger habit:

1. Awareness of anger is the first step to changing it.

• When do you get angry? Does bad traffic trigger your anger? How about waiting in a long line? Whatever the situation, notice when or what brings on anger.
• What do you say to yourself? Most people tell themselves things that add to their anger. Here are two very common categories of self-talk to watch for: 
  • Labeling people. Do you say, “These people are stupid”? Labeling people as stupid (worthless or selfish) can cause you to overreact. “When you label other people, you invariably generate hostility (Burns, 40).” 
  • No time. Another very common way we fuel anger is to say to ourselves, “I don’t have enough time.” When we feel like we don’t have enough time we can become impatient and quick to anger. 

2. Don't judge or try to change your feeling of anger, just notice it. Notice that you are talking to yourself. It may sound like a movie script if you’ve been saying the same thing to yourself for many years. That’s okay, notice your script and move along to step three.

3. Stay with your feeling of anger. The idea is that if we don’t push away an emotion it has less of hold on us. “Staying” with an emotion may seem counterintuitive - we perceive something as being harmful or uncomfortable and we want to rush to stop it.

4. Say the Directions to yourself. Rescue yourself from your anger script by using the Directions: “I allow my neck to be free, so my head may balance at the top of my spine and my whole torso may lengthen and widen.” Notice how it is to be angry when you say no to tightening and yes to allowing expansion.

Buddhist theory can be helpful in understanding anger. Norman Fischer, a Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center, provides insight in his book, Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls:

“On close examination…most of the time anger is a mask for fear. We don’t want to feel fear, which is disempowering and uncomfortable, so we get angry instead. But, what are we afraid of? Things don’t go as we would like them to; the world is not cooperative with our wishes and needs. There is nothing we can do about this. This is a frightening fact. Furthermore, we know that we are vulnerable, subject on a daily basis to unwanted change and finally to death. Our situation is fundamentally shaky and this is terrifying- so instead of facing all this we get angry or irritated about this or that that has gone wrong. Fear is deep and fundamental…”

What is anger? It is the powerful urge to harm. This distinguishes toxic anger from what we might call “righteous anger,” which is a motivation to right injustice rather than to harm. The most important aspect of reflection on anger is to recognize its harmful nature; anger is destructive to self and others; anger never heals. The Zen precept is not “do not be angry.” It is “do not harbor anger.” Do not fan it or add more fuel (605).”

The Zen approach of staying with the emotion is similar to the approach I use in the Technique. Fisher says, 

“As much as possible try simply to be aware of the concrete unpleasant experience of anger without moving from it to blame and then to speak or act angrily (606).”

So, try out the steps above when dealing with anger and notice what happens. Emotional habits are some of the hardest to change, but the benefits of changing the anger habit are many - I’m sure you can think of some! 

Sources:

Fischer, Norman. Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls. North Atlantic Books: 2011. Pages referenced are on Kindle for iPhone. 

Burns, David. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper: 2008. 

Increase Your Confidence: Strike a Power Pose

I started learning the Technique to decrease pain. Becoming more easy-going and confident was a surprising bonus. Even under unusual stress, like being harassed by a colleague at work, I was able to step back and use what I’d learned from The Technique to approach problems. I learned skills which I wish I had known about as a child.

The Technique is based on recognizing habits of unnecessary tension of thought and movement and then replacing the old habits with expansive, open movements and thought patterns. But, why does confidence tend to increase with Alexander Technique lessons? Why do most if not all of my clients say they feel deeply calm and better able to handle stress after a lesson?

Amy Cuddy, a researcher at Harvard, has shown that your body language influences your perception of yourself by changing your biochemistry. The more open and expansive your movement, the more confident you will tend to feel. 

Let’s look at the research:

Expansive nonverbal gestures, including power poses, affect two hormones. They raise testosterone (a dominance hormone) and lower cortisol (a stress hormone) which increases your confidence. Other people perceive your confidence, too. Remember Wonder Woman? That’s an example of a power pose. 

“Shrinking” yourself or “making yourself small” lowers your testosterone and increases your cortisol. So you’ll tend to feel less confident and more stressed. Slumping, pressing your arms tightly to your torso, and crossing arms and legs tightly are examples of making yourself small. 

Lessons in The Technique teach you how to change habits of unnecessary tension and contraction and replace them with expansive movements and thoughts, so power poses become part of your body’s vocabulary. 

Practice on the Train

How do you change a habit of shrinking when you’re not in class with me? Practice expansiveness during situations when you are not being evaluated, perhaps on your daily train ride, when the tendency is to make yourself small. Or practice when you’re meeting new friends. You want to practice during situations in which the stakes aren’t too high. Then, when you need to give a presentation, go for an interview or to an audition, your practice will enable you to meet the situation with expansion. The point is to learn your new habits of expansive thinking and moving before that presentation, interview or audition.

Two Minutes

Before you go into a high stakes situation, take two minutes to do power poses. In Cuddy’s research, she found that when people do power poses for two minutes, they lead to hormonal changes (an increase in testosterone and a decrease in cortisol) that convey confidence and power to one’s own brain and also to the people around him or her.

Use the Directions 

I allow my neck to be free, so that my head may balance at the top of my spine, so that my torso may lengthen and widen, and my legs may ease away from my torso. The Technique’s directions are inherently expansive, and contain the recipe for sustaining the high power pose outcome of confidence.

Watch the video below. It's worth it and it'll help you enjoy your lessons more. 

You may also enjoy reading the article, Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance by Dana R. Carney, Amy J.C. Cuddy, and Andy J. Yapp, Association for Psychological Science. 

How to Sleep Better

Frijolito, our cat, asleep without unnecessary tension. 

Many people ask me if the Alexander Technique (AT) can help with insomnia and getting a better night’s sleep. Yes, AT can help!

My sleep ritual is inspired by AT principles and strategies, and it’s one of the most effective I’ve ever used. This ritual requires very little effort and it can be done before bed, in bed, or if you wake up in the middle of the night. Also, the order of the steps isn’t important – you can do them in any order you like.

1. Say your AT Directions
“I allow my neck to be free, so my head may balance delicately at the top of the spine, to allow my whole torso to lengthen and widen.”
Wish your directions without searching for a release and without doing anything like stretching. Trust that over time your thinking will help you move into more ease and less tightening.
I like to think of how a cat, dog, or a baby sleeps – there is no unnecessary tension.

2. Soften your vision
About an hour before you go to sleep, begin to soften your vision. What does this mean? In a nutshell, this means not over-focusing or straining your eyes.
The verbs “look” and “see” imply we do something, we work, in order to see. To soften your vision, allow what you are seeing to come to you. It’s a passive seeing, imagining that what you see is coming into your sight, rather than actively looking.
Begin to include your peripheral vision. It’s common to over-focus on objects and people during the day, such as on a laptop or a mobile device screen.
But now, you want to direct your vision to be easy and soft, and including the peripheral vision is a good way to help you do so.

3. Notice your breathing
Don’t try to change it, just simply notice it.
No need to try to deepen your breathing by emptying your lungs completely or sucking in air when you inhale.
Simply allow the breath to move in and out.

You could put one hand on your ribs and another on your abdomen. Notice how your torso changes shape as you breathe. If you like, you can gently place your attention on the out breath.

I hope these steps help you sleep. Don't forget to take practical steps to sleep better (less caffeine, turn off your mobile device/computer an hour before bed).

What are your favorite ways to get yourself to sleep and have a restful night?