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Old 06-03-2008, 07:20 PM
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SaintMalaclypse SaintMalaclypse is offline
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Thier research is based on the premise that are are only two ways to deal with emotions - act on them or fight them back.

How a bout a third option...we learn to UNDERSTAND what emotions are. They are chemical reactions to transient situations. If having the boss yell at you makes you mad, then figure out why the boss yelled at you and make THAT stop instead of just yelling back. Could be he yells at you because you're an idiot. Could be he yells at you because you yelled first, since you're the kind of person who yells first, thinks later. Could be he yells at you because his wife is sleeping with his best friend, his dog shit in his slippers, and he has scabies...in which case there's nothing YOU can do that will help anything, so avoid him until those problems pass.

The studies showed that people's heartrate went up for a moment when they responded to the yelling, but stayed eleveated longer when they didn't. It did NOT take into account that the kind of person who CAN'T or WON'T control their emotions may have that same situation a LOT more often than one who can shut his mouth and work on the problem intellectually. I'd rather my heartrate stayed high for 60 minutes once every week that to have it stay high just for a moment 500 times a week.

And anyway...if all they're basing this on is that elevated heartrate is bad, then fat people were right all along: we need to avoid exercise and sit on the couch more.
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