A famous psychiatrist conducted a workshop on stress management for us. He told us the following story.
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I always knew anger was bad for physical and mental health of the person who got angry. But I decided to avoid getting angry only recently. Actually I had planned to practice it and even conduct a workshop for Resident Doctors on anger management. I had collected a lot of theoretical as well as practical material for it. But somehow it remained to be done. Implementing those ideas in my own life also remained not done. Finally I decided to do it. I even made a video for teaching anger management.
One of the techniques that was easy and effective was deep breathing. I liked it. Whenever someone did something that would make me angry, I started breathing deeply. That calmed my anger. I was happy that I had managed it. But there is one Resident Doctor who is very good at making me angry. Something or the other keeps happening in the hands of this person. One day so much happened that I was deep breathing almost continuously for quite some time. So much so that I started feeling faint.
"I am feeling faint" I thought.
"Naturally you will feel faint if you hyperventilate for this long" an alert part of my brain said. "It is due to carbon dioxide washout. It is hypocapnia."
"Yes. I realize that" I thought. "I got rid of my anger, but at what cost."
"Is it not better to be hypocapnic rather than angry?" that alert part of my brain asked.
"Not really" I thought. "I must use other methods to control my anger, at least until this particular Resident Doctor completes residency and moves on. Or very soon I will have no carbon dioxide left in my body."
One good thing that came out of all this was that I discovered a new cause of hypocapnia - aggressive anger management.
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I always knew anger was bad for physical and mental health of the person who got angry. But I decided to avoid getting angry only recently. Actually I had planned to practice it and even conduct a workshop for Resident Doctors on anger management. I had collected a lot of theoretical as well as practical material for it. But somehow it remained to be done. Implementing those ideas in my own life also remained not done. Finally I decided to do it. I even made a video for teaching anger management.
One of the techniques that was easy and effective was deep breathing. I liked it. Whenever someone did something that would make me angry, I started breathing deeply. That calmed my anger. I was happy that I had managed it. But there is one Resident Doctor who is very good at making me angry. Something or the other keeps happening in the hands of this person. One day so much happened that I was deep breathing almost continuously for quite some time. So much so that I started feeling faint.
"I am feeling faint" I thought.
"Naturally you will feel faint if you hyperventilate for this long" an alert part of my brain said. "It is due to carbon dioxide washout. It is hypocapnia."
"Yes. I realize that" I thought. "I got rid of my anger, but at what cost."
"Is it not better to be hypocapnic rather than angry?" that alert part of my brain asked.
"Not really" I thought. "I must use other methods to control my anger, at least until this particular Resident Doctor completes residency and moves on. Or very soon I will have no carbon dioxide left in my body."
One good thing that came out of all this was that I discovered a new cause of hypocapnia - aggressive anger management.
