Anger Management

Anger management is a learned response. Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence describes a series of brain imaging studies that tested two groups of people: one group was identified as being highly resilient to life's ups and downs. The other group was easily upset by life events. Richard Davidson, the Director of Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, tracked their brain functions as they performed several stressful tasks.

The resilient people made rapid recoveries from stress, with their prefrontal cortex starting to calm the amygdala--which is the remnant of our repitilian emotional brain, the brain that cannot negotiate itself out of an emotional rut; instead it floods the body with a cascade of cortisol or stress hormones.

The people in the resilient group were able to institute "stop orders" through the prefrontal cortex to keep the amygdala in check. They were optimistic, action oriented people who could change their self talk and look for action oriented solutions. The people in the vulnerable group were locked in inaction, misery, anger or depression.

Goleman is not suggesting that the resilient group is lucky; what he is saying is that we can change the way our prefrontal cortex responds to stress. We can learn to activate the prefrontal cortex so that our emotional reptilian brain can be put in check.

Enhancing the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex can help a child in the throes of an "explosive" episode. Dr. Ross W. Greene describes this situation in the explosive child as a form of "brain lock." The child gets locked into a response--anger-- and he has tremendous difficulty getting himself unlocked from it. Brian lock is a good explanation of what actually happens when a defiant child explodes.

In his book The Explosive Child, Dr. Greene provides several methods parents and teachers can use to handle defiant children. Ultimately his message is that we help the child develop executive skills that are often delayed in the explosive child. These skills can be and should be taught to children.

Running, Brain Fitness and Anger

Just came across an article by Dr. Adrian Preda M.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior in UC Irvine School of Medicine. He has written an article that answers this question: Are the benefits of physical exercise on the brain dependent on other factors like intellectual stimulation, healthy living, socializing with family and friends? Specifically, is the production of new neurons ( neurogenesis) in the brain due to exercise alone or to all these factors combined within an enriched environment ?

Recent experiments at the Gage Laboratory at UCSD have produced some startling results. Researchers placed mice in various enriched environments--a learning environment where they had access to a maze, a physical exercise environment where they had access to a running wheel, a standard environment which was essentially an empty cage without intellectual or physical stimulation. The groups of mice were compared in terms of behavioral performance. Their brain tissues were examined as well.

The conclusion was surprising: "while both enrichment and wheel running led to improved spatial memory function, only physical exercise in a running wheel also promoted neurogenesis and enhanced the survival of newborn neurons" in the brain. Running is an activity that promotes brain fitness. You can read the entire article here.

What does brain fitness mean?

For one thing, brain fitness means better control of our emotions, better executive control over anger issues.

In his book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John J. Ratey links exercise to emotional control. Exercise like running releases endorphins ,"feel good" compounds that regulate mood, pleasure and pain. Exercise also elevates levels of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin in the blood. These neurotransmitters regulate the focus, attention and the reward centers of the brain.

Exercise is a natural and effective remedy for depression and anger. It develops the executive functions of the brain which exercise anger control. It releases natural mood-regulating brain chemicals that can help your child with anger. Ratey insists that these effects can only be generated by consistent activity – daily exercise for 45 minutes to an hour six days a week.

The interesting thing is that children nowadays seem to be having problems with anger control. Can this situation be due to TV and video games becoming a large part of a child's lifestyle? Yet when we think about this situation, we cannot help but see that running is a natural inclination in children. Children are naturally addicted to running. Running is in their blood when they are between two and six, when they are allowed the freedom to tear their way through yards and fields. Many stop running because of the lure of television and video games. By the time they get to be teens, running is as alien to them as a trip to space.

Let's get our children back on track. Let's get them outdoors as much as we can. Let's give them the opportunity to fall in love with motion, fall in love with the breathing cadence that sustained running brings. We will not only make them physically fit, we are allowing their brains to grow and develop the way they are meant to with new neurons that continue to sprout and live because physical motion has enhanced their survival rate. We are also showing them a natural and effective way to control anger.

We have to get back to our genetic running roots. We are born to run. As Bernd Heinrich writes in Why We Run, "for millions of years, our ultimate form of locomotion was running."

When we run, we are returning to the experience of ancient man, when every muscle and fiber of our being is in sync with the movement of the earth, when our breathing becomes meditative and sustained, and when we move to the rhythm of a universal current. Nowhere can we get a more fundamental and primitive appreciation of wholeness than in a good, steady run. Nowhere else can we get a better handle on our emotions and temper.

If you want to help your child with anger, take him on a hearty run!