Navigating Anger: Do I Have a Problem

(ethereal music) Headspace Studios. (birds chirping) Hi, my name is Nika, and welcome to "Radio Headspace" and to Monday morning. I'm a mental health coach here at Headspace, which is basically helping people get from where they are to where they want to be. If you've never heard of mental health coaching, imagine we're on a trip together and I'm the navigator. I've got the map, snacks, and a fantastic playlist to help you get to where you want to be. Before this, I was a therapist and an anger management specialist, and that's what I actually want to talk to you about this week: anger. It affects all of us. We've all had to deal with traffic, the post office, and large family Thanksgivings. But the truth is anger is complicated. It is a very natural emotion that we all experience, but it can pretty easily become a problem. So, this week, I just wanna help you understand what anger is, how it works in the brain and body, and then give you a few ideas on how you can manage it. (birds chirping) So, I landed in the world of anger management by way of a grad school internship. I started working in some individual sessions with people that said, or society said, had an anger management problem. And what I quickly realized was that anger was so much more complicated than we give it credit for. And from there I was inspired. I wanted to learn more about it and figure out creative ways to help these people. But before we go any further, let's define anger. Now, you won't find this definition in "Webster's Dictionary." Do people even use Webster's anymore? Anyway, you won't find this as any official definition, but it's Nika's and Nika's alone. Simply put, anger is a normal emotion caused by our thoughts about a situation. Now, while I was an anger management specialist, the interesting thing about that work was that no client was alike and no day was like the other. I worked with everyone, every type of person you could imagine. I could start the morning working with a soccer mom, the afternoon with a firefighter, and end the day coaching a physician. What I learned though, was that anger had no bounds. It wasn't predicated on socioeconomic status, education, race, or religion. It impacted everyone to different degrees, and I was determined to help as many people as I could figure it out. So, I developed this rating system composed of three basic elements: intensity, frequency, and duration. For each of these, I'd have my clients rate how they felt from one to 10. For example, if I had a client that recently had a road rage incident, we'd rate the intensity, frequency, and duration one to 10. Normally for road rage, it's a nine. And then I'd have an idea of where to start. And this is something you can do as well. So, the next step...