Healing the Angry Brain: How Understanding the Way Your Brain Works Can Help You Control Anger and Aggression by Ronald Potter-Efron

Author:Ronald Potter-Efron
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Anger Management, Self-Help
ISBN: 9781608821358
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Published: 2012-04-01T02:41:33+00:00

Expanding the Network

Like many people who grew up with financial hardship, I emerged into adulthood with a tendency to be very careful with money. I tried to spend only when I really needed to. Sometimes I held back too long, frustrating my wife, Pat, because I was actually costing us money by trying to save money. Eventually, I realized I needed to change my habits, so I started to spend a little more. As I practiced this behavior I got better at it until I could honestly say I was much more comfortable doing things like giving money to charities than I had been before.

Then one day a client named Suzanne made a fascinating offhand comment: “I never date men who are stingy with their money because men who are tight with money are also tight with their emotions.” Sure, that’s a huge generalization, but it caught my attention. Soon thereafter I made a promise to myself that I would become more generous in general. I quickly discovered that it’s possible to be generous not only with money, but also with emotions, giving praise, cultivating nonjudgmental thoughts about other people and their opinions, trying out new ideas and behaviors, and more. I developed a daily routine, which I maintained for a year, of beginning each morning with a vow to be generous in at least one way that day and ending each evening by reviewing my day to see whether I had kept my promise. Gradually, being more generous in numerous ways became more automatic, so I didn’t have to think long and hard every time an opportunity for generosity arose.

To summarize, an idea caused me to reflect upon my behavior. That allowed me repeatedly to change what I did in situations where it might be possible to be generous. This change of behavior slowly reshaped my neural networks until they became more biased toward generosity. In other words, generosity eventually became my mind’s rule, rather than an occasional exception. I believe that this is an example of building, improving, and expanding a particular neural network.

One way neural networks expand is by recruiting existing neurons into the group. Certain areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, also create new neurons (a process known as neurogenesis). It’s possible that these newly developed neurons could be added to an expanding network, though that remains to be proven.

In addition, individual neurons do something that’s pretty remarkable. Their dendrites can grow new branches that spread out. Just like a tree, the dendrite sends out large branches, which develop smaller branches, which in turn develop even smaller branches. In honor of this similarity between trees and neurons, this process is called arborization. Arborization allows each dendrite to contact and influence hundreds or even thousands of other neurons. In this way, the neural network becomes not only larger, but also far denser.

How to Change Your Brain

Build a neural network, improve the network, and expand the network—this is the formula for achieving significant and long-lasting brain changes. This is what you need to do to calm your angry brain and become a less angry person.

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