Ok. First off, I apologize about telling everyone that I was leaving the forum, and then returning. This will be my last post, as I believe I finally figured things out. I couldn't help but share this with you guys too. Whether it applies to you or not, here me out..
Patrick
No apologies required. I’ve left in a huff a few times myself.
I agree that it is inherited. But I have a slightly different take than you do. I believe it is the chronic stress that is inherited, which eventually leads to a crash.
Check of this study done on chickens
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.137...
Here are the results in a nutshell:
The exposed chickens to a stressful environment. They simply kept changing when it was light and dark in their pen, so they sort of experienced perpetual jet lag.
These stress chickens would eventually become proud parents.
The stressed chickens had 31 stress related genes that became activated
Sidebar: Through epigenetics … it is the environment that matters, not DNA. You may have a gene, but it is your environment that determines which genes are expressed (or activated)
So… compared to unstressed chicken parents the jet lagged chick parents had these 31 extra genes activated.
Now…..when their offspring were hatched, they had the same 31 genes activated. They never met their parents, so it wasn’t behavioral inheritance, it was epigenetics.
Ok… so the offspring of these stressed parents were found to be more aggressive and competitive than normal.
They were born in a state of stress …. Just like us. They could not return to homeostasis.
I have a huge family. My mom was the oldest of 16, and I have about 50 cousins on that side of the family.
Pretty much all of them have signs of adrenal fatigue. Anxiety, afternoon crash, insomnia, bruxism, eye floaters…everything.
From my perspective, I certainly was NOT fatigued as a kid. Hell no. Up until I was 33, I felt super human. I was freakishly fast and strong, could handle ANY amount of stress.
In Stage 2 of the General Adaptation Syndrome, Dr Hans Selye found that the adrenal glands actually grow in order to deal with the constant stress.
But I do agree, even back then, I was a thrill seeker. So I do see what you are saying. I was an odd mix of being able to produce an above average level of adrenaline when needed, while at the same time having symptoms of being deficient.
Keep in mind that during this period we were probably majorly deficient in Vitamin C and B`s. Burning them up at a high rate.
In a nutshell, I believe it is the stress that is interested … leading to eventual adrenal fatigue.
"Oh .. and by the way, even though 174156 seemed like a major jerk that clearly does not practice meditation himself, he was right that meditation does turn off genes."
Yes I do practice meditation. The kind that uses grounding that brings you as spirit into your body. By being in one's body you become aware of what it is telling you and let me point out that controlled anger within one's space is a big, big, healing. I don't think that you will find anywhere in my posts on this thread that I have called anyone a name. I've only addressed a response to the poster.
You will find in the bible that our body is our temple and you will also find that Jesus clearing out the temple - twice, is symbolic of cleaning out the body with anger. Yup, Jesus was pissed when he cleared the temple.
Once more, if you try to hide your anger you will become ill - very ill. You will look for ways to heal yourself and sticking things in your mouth does nothing for stored anger. There are many psychologists/psychiatrists today who have their patients beat on pillows to release their anger but by simply allowing it to run when it develops is by far the best way.
This is the post that started me off:
http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=2098050#i
I make no apologies for being human.
"Um, actually, you called hawksfan "a liar", but that part of the thread was removed."
I called him a liar because that's what his post showed.
"Your anger was not controlled in your space. It was uncontrolled in our shared space."
Totally untrue. If you chose to react that way to my posts - that's your responsibility, not mine.
Stay grounded and let your anger run.
Thanks for posting. You've got to let it all hang out.
Each person has their own concept of "rude" - especially when it applies to others.
You wrote:
"Everyone thinks its so complicated this AF stuff. It's quite simple."
I don't get it. I haven't followed all of your posts but those that I have read you were searching, desperately searching, for a solution to your AF and then you found one. It's now simple?
Who are you channeling today?
It`s been a while since I went to Sunday school.
Perhaps they have modified the New Testament to put more emphasis on how Jesus encouraged anger? I just don’t remember that being one of his core teachings?
If he did encourage anger, he probably would have died of heart attack eventually anyway.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/anger-may-raise-heart-attack-risk-study-finds-1...
Anger may raise heart attack risk, study finds
"It`s been a while since I went to Sunday school.
Perhaps they have modified the New Testament to put more emphasis on how Jesus encouraged anger? I just don’t remember that being one of his core teachings?"
It's recorded in the New Testament twice. He used a whip. Why do you think it is there? Twice? He taught by example. It's pretty simple - if you don't like what he taught, don't practice it.
There are loads of things in the NT that are not taught in "Christian" churches. That's just one example. He also drank and partied and associated with hookers and other low life's. One of his disciples was a tax collector, one of the most hated individuals in the Roman Empire. These are people you'd never find in most "Christian" churches today.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wander-woman/201101/want-change-get-angry
This is the time of year that people DE CLARE what they want to change in their lives. Unfortunately the real-time decisions you make will likely be based on emotion and will supersede those you logically made on New Years. When the time comes to make the change, your emotions will trick you into finding a great rationalization for ignoring your stated intention.
The good news is you can counteract this process with emotional awareness. You have to recognize what you are feeling in the moment and then make a conscious shift to feel something else.
First you need to recognize if you are feeling discomfort, boredom, confusion, fear or worry when you consider making the change. Then you need to shift to a stronger emotion that will allow you to step through the pain and take the steps toward change.
In other words, you have to want the change badly enough to overcome the discomfort, boredom, confusion, embarrassment, and worry that pops up to stop you along the way.
The intensity of your desire to change, whether based on a positive or negative emotion, correlates to the likelihood you will complete the process.
You must allow yourself to feel a strong emotion, with anger being one of your strongest motivators, before you fully commit to making a complex change in your self-concept and behavior. An intense negative reaction to your circumstances revs up your internal motor more powerfully than a lightly held wish. Through extensive research, Jennifer Lerner and her team at the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory found that anger both encourages people to believe they can control their future and then motivates them to take risks.
This is often difficult for my female clients. They have been brought up to believe that expressing anger is bad. They cringe and get small in the presence of angry people. Or if they do express anger, it tends to be a knee-jerk reaction to someone's perceived disrespect. The don't channel their anger to a productive end.
The skill is to shift the focus of your anger away from external circumstances to instead focus on what you strongly desire to change within yourself. It is not your flaky boss or overwhelming responsibilities that make you scream at strangers while you drive. You should be angry that it has taken so long for you to realize that you have the power to change your circumstances.
Many times I have asked a client, "Are you finally mad enough at yourself for allowing this to happen again?" The question focuses the anger on their own avoidance mechanisms, disarming the blocks they had for changing. When you adamantly say, "Enough," you may be angry about your circumstances but probably you are just as angry at yourself for standing in the mud with two good feet.
Use your anger to initiate the positive shifts you need to change your life.
You must shift internally before you can change your external reality. Anger can be a great mobilizer of positive action.
However, sustained anger can be destructive physically in your body and externally in the world around you. Anger, frustration, stress and the other negative emotions that trigger the brain to release adrenaline and cortisol will over time wear out your body by causing high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, hormonal imbalances, a weakened immune system, and a host of digestive problems.¹
Also, anger can eventually drive away the result you want. You can drive people away with your anger, people who could help you achieve your goals. Brain researchers are substantiating the effect of one person feeling irate or vengeful on others in the vicinity, whether the angry person displays or suppresses these emotions.² Even if you don't direct your emotions at others, the measurable energy your emotions emit repels people, counteracting your desire to connect with people in a new, more positive way.
Therefore, once you commit to your transformation journey, you should shift your focus away from what is missing in your life (evoking anger) to what you want to passionately and positively create (inspiring passion). Determine what you want to end and then make the shift from a negative to a positive expression of want you deeply desire to create.
Adamantly wanting something to end is a good way to kickstart the transformation process. Yet once you are off and running, you need a positive obsession to sustain your efforts.
Ask yourself how badly you want what you deserve and what you are capable of creating:
* What do I want more of in my life?
* What have I had enough of and needs to end today?
* How can I shift my frustration to what I dearly want to create?
Put your emotions in service of what you desire. Get angry! Then employ positive, powerful emotions to help you survive your journey.
Sure... if your goal is death from an early heart attack, anger works perfectly.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/stress/anger.aspx
"The study, which tracked 1,337 male medical students for 36 years following medical school, found that students who became angry quickly under stress were three times more likely to develop premature heart disease and five times more likely to have an early heart attack. Angry young men, it appears, turn into angry old men with heart problems"
"Sure... if your goal is death from an early heart attack, anger works perfectly."
Not true.
The key to being angry as a healing energy is to be in control of it and allow it to run without being destructive. It's a learned response and very beneficial. Again, when you deny and bury your anger - that's what produces heart attacks. Anger also rids the body of fear - any day of the week.
http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/yourmentalhealth/2013/08/20/the-benefits-of...
Your heart races, your body temperature rises, and you feel ready for an outburst that expresses how angry you really are. You may be tempted to hold back your anger, but this may not always be the best approach. It turns out anger has a beneficial side too. This emotion is often hidden or repressed by some, but it can be helpful and even healthy.
Psychologists examining the expression of anger are finding that it can help resolve disputes when combined with a proactive approach. When two people use anger to work towards a solution, rather than to vent about how they’ve been wronged, anger is actually a positive emotion. Such an approach can strengthen a relationship as it allows one party to evaluate and express how he feels. The other party benefits from this as well. When not played out in a dramatic manner, he gets a better understanding of his partner’s view of the problem and the two can start towards a negotiation that may lead to compromise. “This is in contrast to the negative long-term consequences described by people who felt they were victimized and yet hid their anger from the perpetrator” say Baumeister, Stillwell and Wotman in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 59, No. 5).
Everyday anger is beneficial outside the home as well. It can decrease feelings of uncertainty on the national front. In 2001, Dr. Larissa Tiedens of Stanford University published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology citing four studies that found evidence for people granting more status to politicians who express anger than to politicians who express sadness or guilt. Just think back to the events following 9/11 and recall the leadership with which Rudolph Giuliani, then mayor of New York, empowered the people to feel less fearful. President George W. Bush also used anger to rally the troops and empower people following the attack. A clear expression of anger is seen as powerful and prepares people for action.
Additionally, feelings of certainty and optimism as a positive outcome following anger were evidenced and measured in scientific literature by social psychologists, Jennifer Lerner, Roxanna Gonzales, Deborah Small and Baruch Fischoff from Carnegie Mellon University. Their study, published in the March, 2003 issue of Psychological Science, examined the responses of the public during two stages following the 9/11 attacks. The first stage took place nine days following the attacks. As a baseline, 1786 people were assessed regarding their feelings about the event and their levels of stress, anxiety and desire for revenge. Two months later, as stage two of their study, Lerner and colleagues primed 973 participants to feel angry, fearful or sad. The different groups had different reactions. More specifically, those primed to feel angry were found to give more realistic and optimistic assessments of 25 terrorist-related risks compared to the participants primed to feel fearful. In this way, angry people feel more in control and have a higher degree of certainty than fearful people.
Anger can also help promote justice without resorting to violence. In fact, anger reduces violence, even when it precedes it. Imagine how different the world would be without the angry words and actions that brought about change when Martin Luther King Jr. fought for civil rights in the 1960’s or when women were advocating for the right to vote and be seen as equals in society. In this way, anger motivates change.
In addition to reducing domestic and national disputes, improving relationships, and lubricating negotiations, anger can also be beneficial to health. When used constructively, anger benefits heart patients who have problems with hostility. According to one analysis by Davidson and colleagues published in Health Psychology (2000), anger helps these patients maintain their resting blood pressure. Constructive anger is a way to resolve a problem when the person expressing it is justified and presents his frustrations to the wrongdoer. By contrast, anger is not constructive, that is to say it is destructive, when it is used to confront someone or vent bad feelings.
We can all benefit from recognizing the positive sides of anger. Anger puts us in touch with our point of view, allows us to feel more in control and can be the first step towards negotiating a solution to a problem. It motivates, alleviates uncertainty, reduces violence and hostility and can even be good for your heart. So don’t be so quick to discount anger as a negative emotion or hide it behind a ‘grin and bear it’ attitude.
I don’t want to contribute to you having a heart attack even sooner.
So I’ll let you get the last word in, which is 100% guaranteed to come after this post.
But you may want to actually read this 36 year study completed by John Hopkins School of Medicine. Could save your life.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/stress/anger.aspx
"The study, which tracked 1,337 male medical students for 36 years following medical school, found that students who became angry quickly under stress were three times more likely to develop premature heart disease and five times more likely to have an early heart attack. Angry young men, it appears, turn into angry old men with heart problems"
Sending love out to you (instead of anger), for the benefit of my heart
You didn't read my post or if you did, you certainly don't understand it. I wrote that I had learned how to control my anger. How to use it as a healing. Do you think that parents no longer love their children when they become angry with them? Love includes anger. In fact when you control your anger and run it in a healthy way you are expressing your love and you are not denying it and asking for a heart attack.
The study you present says nothing about people who know how to control and run their anger for healing. Not a word. I'm not the only one who uses this method - I was taught by others many years ago. It works for them and it works for me. Of course I'm only in my eighties so I'm still learning.
http://www.lifestyleintegrity.com/anger-is-love/
Anger is Love
I used to be sooooo angry. I was angry at the state of the world. I was angry at you. I was angry at myself.
Now anger arises so rarely I miss it. And when it comes I cherish it as a gift. What changed? I went deeper into the anger and felt its roots.
Where does your anger come from? Do you embrace it? How do you act when this emotion arises? Do you become aware of anger early enough to choose clarity over rage? Can you smile while you are angry?
Anger comes from love. You can not get angry unless you care about something. It is impossible to feel anger without love. Understanding this on a deep level and developing the ability to witness this within yourself will change your relationship to anger completely. Your anger is there to serve you. It is there to serve others. It exists because you care.
Embracing anger is healthier than suppressing it. We have all heard the suggestion to breath 10 times when you get angry, to pause and let it pass. Perhaps you have been advised to close your eyes, to meditate, to visualize, to exercise, to do anything to minimize or work past the feeling of anger. I say that if you have a problem with anger it is not because you indulge it. The problem is that you do not feel it deeply enough to understand its roots. Anger is dangerous unless you feel it deeply. Truly bringing your awareness to your anger changes everything. Feeling anger deeply brings you to love.
How we act when anger arises is determined by the degree of awareness we have of our internal landscape. The less aware we are of how anger arises the later in its gestation we feel it. When we witness anger at its roots it feels like love. When we catch it early it does not feel overwhelming and we therefore have a choice in how it is expressed in our actions. When we choose to honor anger as a manifestation of love it can be channeled into a creative, even nurturing act. When a loved one is threatened anger compels us to protect them. This we know. But do you recognize that you are often protecting yourself when you get angry? Can you connect with the feeling of vulnerability that precedes the anger? Trace the anger and you will find yourself feeling threatened. Beneath that you will find what you love. Before all else you love yourself.
The later we become aware the more anger controls us and the more likely we are to act destructively when we get angry. Anger offers clarity, but first you must circulate the energy from your body to your mind. If you go into a blind rage when anger arises it is because you have not learned to connect your awareness with your body. Awareness is a skill that develops with use. In life threatening situations fight or flight responses serves to protect us. These adrenaline fueled reactions are rarely appropriate in the modern world. As you get more in touch with your anger you can choose to engage these impulses or not. In nonphysical confrontations, in conversation, in argument, the more evolved response is to quiet the body and engage higher cognition. You must circulate the immense energy that anger offers to your higher mind. Only then should you choose to bring that energy back into your body to act with purpose.
Embracing your anger allows you to honor it. Anger does serve a purpose. Anger is how we connect with that which we love and keep it safe. Yes, you feel anger if someone attacks you or your loved ones. You likely also feel anger when someone threatens your authority or expertise. Can you admit to yourself that you feel vulnerable whenever you are angry? Can you recognize this in others when they get angry with you? When someone is angry at you it is directly linked to their sense that something they love feels threatened. Can you honor the love in them or do you feel the need to strike back with aggression?
Anger is a tremendously powerful force. Anger connects you with your power. Emotions themselves are not necessarily good or bad. Power can be used to help or to hurt. It is rarely helpful to judge yourself for your emotions. Destructive actions triggered directly by emotions are what we must control. What happens if you simply feel your emotions deeply; including anger? Many fear that anger will lead them to do something terrible, to hurt someone, to lash out, to make a mistake. But what happens if you connect with the love that is behind the anger? How does this effect the tone of the experience? How does it effect the actions the emotions inspire? Might it allow you to wield this power differently?
Try smiling when you feel anger. Smile, breathe deep and exhale with ease. Your eyes must smile as well. This is not a maniacal grin. This is an easy smile. You should feel it in your heart. You must keep breathing. Holding your breath traps energy. Breathing deeply circulates energy. Smiling will interrupt a pattern of rage, a pattern of holding anger below your neck. Smiling can be a key, a Trim Tab to transforming anger into clarity and compassion.
Anger brings clarity by bringing us completely into focus in the moment. Many are drawn to anger because of the sense of power and clarity, righteousness and control that it brings to a situation. What happens if you choose not to shut the anger off, not to deny or suppress it as many would suggest, but to truly honor this anger? Breathe deep of the feeling and feel the energy coursing through your body. Let that energy move up into your mind. Let anger develop into clarity. Understand why you are upset. Connect with the vulnerability in you and others and honor the love that is at the root of this feeling. Use the clarity and energy that anger offers to take care of yourself and others. Let anger become a catalyst for creativity.
The tattoo on my arm is a reminder. Aggressive patterns run up and down my arm. In the center there is a dove. When I see anger in others it helps remind me that love lies beneath all things, even violence.