About Anger, and the Half Hour
According to Fred Jones, author of "Tools for Teaching", adrenaline takes 28 minutes to energize the body, then to taper off in effect and be processed out of the blood stream.
Adrenaline is produced to fuel the ‘fight or flight’ reflex. When attacked, threatened, frustrated, or from anger, or from thoughts of anger or aggression, we encounter this 28 minute span when our emotions are skewed and our thinking is affected. To reduce the impact of adrenaline-fueled aggression on our actions, there are two things we can do.
At the first stirring of the response, the first insult, the first time a mate or child or friend is rude — take a calming breath. Then wait a half hour before making any decisions. Get off by yourself if you need to, restrict yourself to mechanical, non-emotional words or actions, or get away by yourself, but don’t think about the hurt or slight or meanness.
See, it can take several seconds to minutes for the adrenaline level to ‘peak’. Once we start producing adrenaline we continue to do so while the ‘danger’ is present, to increase our chances of ‘getting away’ (or beating the crap out of the attacker). When we recognize the beginning of an ‘Adrenaline Moment’ and take a calming breathe, we reassure ourselves, and we stop the production of adrenaline. The impact will be much less.
But we will still be affected for the next 28 minutes. So we need to control our situation, but avoid acting on the adrenaline, for half an hour. Think calming thoughts, think of simple chores and tasks, do something mild and distracting for that time.
I understand the Eskimos have a proverb, that there is a magic to turn rocks into gold. Stare at the rock for a full day, and never, ever, think of walrus blubber. Just put walrus blubber completely out of your mind for that full day, because any bit of thought about the walrus and you would have to start concentrating on a new rock, on another day. Dawn to dawn, with no thoughts of walrus.
Planning acts of aggression, punishing someone, thinking of painful encounters to come, thinking of revenge, these all can trigger production of adrenaline. Which can affect our judgment, make us itch to put some bad idea into action. So when anger, fear, and the disrespect of others turn on our emotional and hormonal engines, we need to turn our thoughts to simple, non-threatening things. Something that we can focus almost all of our attention on, in a safe environment. Something that we will give a full half hour.
Running or walking can be good. Listen to a tape or podcast, or book on cassette, something to listen to and focus on to follow. Popular music so often plays in the background it can be easy to disregard it, and return our thoughts to the moments that caused our anger in the first place. Which would re-start the adrenaline cycle. If not electronic diversion, count steps, count breaths (walking: 7 heartbeats out, hold 7 beats, breathe in for 7 beats, repeat), focus on the tension and limberness of your legs, feet, back, breathing.
Meditation is a practice of calming and ‘clearing our thoughts’ to provide at least a half-hour break in the adrenaline cycle. Studying, shopping, visiting with friends, going to a movie. These can be excellent ‘release valves’.
But do find a diversion, that lasts over half an hour.
And solve the problem at the end of that half hour, while your judgment and emotions are fueled by thinking and logic, not adrenaline. No matter how many times it takes to restart that half-hour clock.
It may be that Dr. Kenneth Cooper missed the point, when his original Aerobics program research stressed that aerobic conditioning only happens after exercise persists longer than 20 minutes. Perhaps what Dr. Cooper saw in those first 20 minutes, for the Air Force Academy students, was allowing adrenaline to finish it’s cycle, with diversion (supervised exercise) sufficient to avoid another adrenaline rush.
In the book Patriot Games, Ryan finds an emotional release in target shooting. The need to focus on accuracy, safety, and his performance gave him a much-needed release from anxiety over attacks on his family, and anger at the attackers. Note that this time was not spent in thoughts of revenge, of envisioning his enemies in his power. Instead he got an emotional retreat and renewal.
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