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Hi, I'm Raj Punj, Head of Identity Content at HuffPost.

I'm Noah Michelson, Head of HuffPost Personal.

Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong, the show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

Okay, Raj. I know you pretty well now from doing this show together, but one thing I don't know is, do you have a temper?

It's funny. You know what? I don't think you'll ever see it. I do have a temper, but you really have to poke the bear in order to find it.

I am the same way. Okay. I will take it and take it and take it. But once you push me over the edge, you need to not only get out of the room, get out of the state. Sure. Dumpster fire. Because I'm just going to explode.

I love us for that.

I do, too. But it might not be the healthiest. No. We have Ryan Martin here today. He's known as the Anger Professor, which is such a great nickname. He spent his life researching studying anger. He's a psychologist. He's a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He's even written two books, one, which I should probably read, How to deal with angry people and Why do we get mad? How to use your anger for Positive Change.

Love it.

Let's rage. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

I found out about you on Instagram. You're known as the Anger Professor. How did you start researching Anger? Why is that what you chose to spend your time doing?

Yeah, you bet. Officially, I've been doing this for about 25 years, but unofficially before that. So I went to graduate school with the idea that I wanted to study anger. Actually went and followed a particular professor who was working at the University of Southern Mississippi that I wanted to work with. I'm originally from Minnesota, but was interested enough that I decided to go down south for a few years. But it's really rooted, like a lot of psychologists, in my childhood experiences. I had a relatively angry dad. He wasn't often angry at me, though he was sometimes. He was more just someone who tended to snap at others off and on, so much so that people often referred to us as having the, quote, unquote, Martin temper that all of us had. And I came from a very loving household, but also one where anger was expressed freely. And in college, I got the sense that it was understudied compared to other things and that this was something that I could get interested in.

For sure it is. Can you tell us a little bit about your Anger Project and what you've learned from it?

Yeah. So this is something I started a few years ago, just collecting data on my website, All the Rage Science. And honestly, one of the issues that we have is that We don't really have an anger thermometer. It'd be nice if we had a sense for how anger changed over time, how people reacted to things, and how often they were getting angry over time. Because that's probably the most frequent question I get, which is, are we angrier today than we once were? And there's no easy way to answer that. So I thought, well, maybe this is a way that I could get a sense for how people are reacting to things, just a frequency of how often they get angry. And what was It's really interesting to me about it, a couple of things I learned. First, most people say they get angry a couple of times a day. That's the most common answer is a couple of times a day, followed by every day. So there's that. The other thing And this actually was a really nice interesting surprise. It's why I like to collect data, is that the most common source of anger was actually not other people, but it was themselves.

People voiced a a lot of frustration with themselves saying, Hey, when I screw things up, I get mad at myself. When I drop the ball, I get mad at myself. And that was not necessarily what I was expecting. In fact, I threw that option on the survey as a last minute addition based on some feedback I got, and I'm glad I did.

That's so interesting. And also just the idea of whether or not we're angrier today than we have been. We ask this question a lot on the show. We did a show on anxiety, and it's like, are people more anxious today than they were before? I understand how it's probably difficult to gage that, but I also feel like maybe there are things, one, more things to be angry about, but two, it's less okay to be angry today than it was before. When you were growing up with your dad or any of us who had angry parents, I think a lot of people, that's a trope. I think in the Christmas story, if you've seen that movie, the dad is angry and he's always swearing and snarling. That was just how a lot of people- It's also to masculinity, which will come to later. Completely. Now that today we're unraveling a lot of that, I think that that makes this conversation even more appropriate to have.

You know what this reminds me a lot of? Do you guys watch Bill Burr's Comedy Ever? Oh, yeah. He does a lot of stuff He talks about his own anger issues, and now he has a little kid, so he's always concerned about expressing that. That's what that really reminded me of. We are all thinking about this more.

Yeah, completely.

The norms have changed considerably, I think, to your point, about how we can express our anger. I think that one of the things that makes it a little complicated is there's sometimes a difference between whether or not we are angry and how we're expressing that anger. I think you're right, there's more to be angry about Also, the norms about what we can do with it have changed quite a bit. Who's allowed to be angry, put that in quotes, has changed considerably. What's appropriate to express has changed considerably. And so all of that is influencing this bigger question of, are we angrier now than we used to be?

I want to get into more of that. But first, I think we should just start at the beginning. And I would love for you to walk us through the pathway between not being angry to being angry. And What's going on there in terms of psychology and what you found. Why do we get mad? And how does that get triggered and explode?

I'm so glad you asked, because so often people start from a very linear perspective of, I get mad, because of something someone else did. Somebody does something wrong and I react with anger to it, and it's that simple. And you hear it in the language people use. They say things like, It made me so mad when, or I got mad because. And of course, that can be true. I mean, there are provocations that are just so inherently angering that the anger response is that quick and makes that much sense. But ultimately, what happens is it's It's a confluence of these three different things. There's a provocation or even a stimulus, something that happens to us, or it could be a memory. It could actually even be something imagined, and we can talk about that later. But this thing that happens that we interpret as being provoking, and that interpretation is, we're going to talk about that in a second. The other piece is our mood at the time, and I'm defining mood broadly to include, are we already Are we angry about something? Are we sad? Are we anxious? Are we stressed? Are we too hot or too cold?

Are we running late for something and so on. And then there's what I think is probably the most important part is the appraisal or how we interpret that thing. And if we interpret that thing as poor treatment to us, an injustice to us or to someone we care about as blocking our goals, if we decide that that thing that happened falls into those categories, well, then that's when we get angry. And so this helps explain why we get angrier in particular circumstances. So my big example for this is that I'm actually a relatively low key, relaxed driver right up until the point I'm running low on gas. And if I'm running low on gas, everything that happens on the road feels like something that's going to make me run out of gas and ruin my day or my week or whatever. And so I now interpret things very, very differently because of that slight difference in this situation. And this happens a lot. So we get angry in certain circumstances because how we interpret or because the mood we're in at the time.

Ryan, when we're not thinking about anger in the specific instance or something happening in a moment, but we zoom out and think about anger, have you found in your studies that there is a nature versus nurture aspect to anger? Are people who... Can anger be genetic? You said you're a pretty low-key guy, but your dad wasn't. Are people who come from families that are angry? Obviously, if you grow up in that and you see that all the time, it might influence you. But is there anything that says, actually, some people are just genetically- Like in our DNA. Yeah, more angry.

Yeah, so there definitely is. So there's a couple of... And it's really linked to a couple of different brain structures that are associated with anger. And so we can highlight there's a little structure deep in the center of our brain called the amygdala, and it's what initiates emotional responses. People tend to think about it connected to anxiety, and it definitely is, but it also initiates other emotional responses, too, including anger. And so when we take in a stimulus, our amygdala says, Oh, that's bad, get mad, fires off these messages to other parts of our brain that affect our facial expression, right? So we start glaring at people or snarling in some way. But also it kicks off that sympathetic nervous system arousal, the fight or flight system, our rate increases, and so on. And of course, those structures are going to be linked, at least in part, to this genetic predisposition. How active our amygdala is, is going to be somehow connected to our genetics. Same thing, our prefrontal cortex, this area at the front of our brain, helps control our emotional impulses. That's going to be more or less active in people, in part because of those genetic characteristics.

The other piece you mentioned, though, is the upbringing element, right? And living in a house with that. And so I can tell you, I'm a chill, relaxed driver now in a relatively calm person now, but that actually took work, right? That took effort for me to become this way. For a long time, I was in no way a calm and collected person. I think I did both inherit some of that anger, but also saw that through modeling and ended up modeling a lot of what I saw from my dad and my siblings.

Have you done research on people who get really angry? When you see these things, especially we're seeing it more and more, I feel like on TikTok, people catching people at the grocery store going off on someone on a road rage. What's happening when someone is just having these fits of rage?

Yeah, let's deal with rage. I love that word.

Mentioning those videos is really important because I actually think they provide a window into something that psychologists have never really been able to study in detail before. And I say that because rage, that rage is almost impossible to study in a laboratory. For ethical reasons and a whole bunch of other reasons, you can't make people that mad in a lab to try and get a feel for what's going on. So for me, actually, watching those types of videos that you're describing, the ones that show up on TikTok and YouTube or whatever, that can be a really interesting way to get a sense for what's going on and how people are behaving and why they're behaving that way. One of the challenges there, though, is that so often the videos start after the person has gotten angry, and so I don't get a chance to see what happens to lead up to it unless you... Sometimes we'll have some backstory or something like that included with it. What I think is happening is in a lot of those cases is that when people are angry, they can sometimes be quite irrational. And I think part of what is happening is that they're feeling particularly vulnerable in those moments.

And this is true in any emotional moment, right? We tend to feel pretty vulnerable, and that defensiveness kicks in. And so what you don't want to do when you're vulnerable is admit that you're wrong. And I think what's happening for a lot of people is is there's the spark, right? The thing that happens, they get angry, and they maybe overreact in a way that is embarrassing to them. They get a little bit defensive about it, and then that continues, and They end up doubling down because they don't want to back up and say, You know what? I was in the wrong here.

Okay, so you talked a little bit about what happens to your body when you get angry, right? So can you tell us a little bit more about that? And has anger has it ever served an adaptive evolutionary purpose? Has it been good for us? I feel like, just want to say that a lot of times, for me, it's more useful to get angry than sad about certain things. I mobilize a little bit.

Yeah, I think, first of all, All emotions, anger included, exist because they solved some adaptive problem in our evolutionary history. And so when we get scared, it's our brain's way of alerting us to a threat. When we get sad, it's our brain's way of alerting us to a loss. When we get angry, it's our brain's way of alerting us to injustice. It's saying we or someone we care about is being mistreated, and it energizes us to confront that injustice. And so when I say it energizes us, that's what that sympathetic nervous system piece is doing. The fight or flight system is saying, Hey, we need to fight back. We need to respond to this injustice in a meaningful way. And so it gives us that energy It focuses our attention on the thing that we are upset about. It actually mobilizes us physically in all these ways. So I said, when the amygdala fires off these messages, one of the things it does is it signals to a clump of neurons called the facial motor nuclei that kick off these facial expressions that signal to people, Hey, I'm mad.

Let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

I saw your B Good baker running by again the other day, she's I to Elmish that Brennan. Ah, yes, she's he. I've never seen her stand still. And she's running rings around the rest of us with our Brennan's B Good bread. Only 60 calories a slice. 60 calories, she's I. That's just a whole meal, is it? No, you see, it's the whole meal, the whole grain and the waste. 60 calories a slice and high in fiber, whatever way it slice is. That's why anything baked is better with Brennan's Today's Bread Today.

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Welcome back to Am I Doing It Wrong? You know, recently, and I want to hear what Ryan has to say, but I want to be praised for this in case it's healthy. But my newest thing is when I'm feeling angry, I will go to the gym and run. Yeah. I, 95 % of the time, feel better when I do this.

Good. So we're going to unpack that, if that's okay. Yes, please. Because the research on exercise for emotional well-being is actually super nuanced and complicated. Let me back up and say, when it comes to what are healthy ways to express anger, very contextual, right? Sure. And that's because the consequences for expressing anger can be so varied, meaning that if I get mad at my boss and yell at them, there's a there's a there's a consequence there that might be different than if I'm in another situation and I yell. And so the best way to handle anger oftentimes has to do with our surroundings and the situation we're in. Now, that's fair. There aren't very many situations where yelling at people is the right thing to do. But I think that it's worth noting that there are times where you might actually need to suppress a little bit and learn to fight another day. There might be some times, though, where assertive communication is effective. Communication, yeah. There might be times when journaling or going home and playing music or channeling it into those things is really helpful. Now, the interesting thing about exercise is exercise is so, so, so good as a general rule for emotional well-being.

It really, really feels great. It's recent research has shown that it outperforms some medications for mental health concerns.

It's crazy.

It's an incredible tool. There is a lot of research that says it has a very similar effect when you are angry as using a rage room or something like that, which might feel good in the moment, but a lot of times it keeps those angry thoughts at the surface and that it ends up having a potentially harmful effect. So that's what I mean when I say it's really nuanced. There are It's times when exercise is good and times when it's not so good.

I think I totally get that. I can't run off my rage, but I can maybe while I'm running, figure out and process some things about maybe how to communicate effectively instead of throwing a plate at a wall.

Right. Or you can run off your rage, but when you stop running, it might still be there. So instead, if you can process, so much of what you're talking about, Ryan, it really sounds like is that we have to unpack why we're angry and deal with that. Otherwise, it's just going to be infected, infested, Well, that's the hard part, right?

I don't like processing anything. I would love to just take drugs or run on the treadmill, but processing is hard and we have to do it, right?

This is why it's such an important point, because people ask me all the time about venting, right? And just going to a friend and unload again, telling them, Oh, here are all the bad things, all the terrible things. And is that good or bad for you? It can feel really good. But as we know, doing things that feel good doesn't necessarily make them for us, right? Overeating feels good. Drinking too much might feel good. So is that venting healthy? And I think this is a case where the devil is in the details, because if you're just going to complain wine, probably not. Probably keeps a lot of those thoughts up there. It probably exacerbates the anger, especially if your friend is agreeing and supporting you. But if you're using that time to process and to unpack why you're feeling that way, to talk about what's going on for you, to better understand the thoughts you're having that might be leading to this anger, that is a much, much healthier way of dealing with it. That processing is really good for you. And Raj, to your point, that's one of the things I do when I run is I'm using that as an opportunity to think through some of those frustration, to come up with solutions, to better understand why I'm feeling that way, and so on.

I'm mostly just listening to Megan, the in and being angrier. But the thing you just said is really important to me because when me and my partner decide to have a complaining session to each other, the first thing we say is, do you want support or a solution? Oh, yeah. I love it. Okay, because it used to go nowhere, these conversations. We would just stoke each other's anger. Yeah. So now we're sometimes trying to help each other process.

No, I think that's really smart.

Yeah, I love that. And it's one of the things... Actually, one of the things we do at the office here is when we're feeling frustrated, I will oftentimes say, I'm first going to have an unproductive response.

That's great.

And then we will have a little vent, and then I'll say, Okay, now let's get to the productive response.

That's so therapeutic, though. You need to have an unproductive response sometimes. Completely. I have to ask, how gendered is anger? I want to talk about gender and race. It's my favorite thing to talk about. I tend to cry when I'm angry. It's the most annoying, gendered, patriarchal thing that exists in my anger process. Why am I doing this? Can you help me?

Yes. There's a couple of things that are going on. So the gender piece, the race piece, all of these are really very, very involved in how we experience and express anger. And so starting with the element you brought up about the tendency to cry, there's a couple of different sides to this. One is a modeling piece, which is that we've probably been exposed to... We tend to express emotions the way our caregivers members did. Totally. Both because of the modeling piece, but also on some level, we were probably rewarded for it, right? That they praised us when we handled emotions the same way they did, either intentionally or unintentionally, and they shamed us when we didn't. So there's that. I also think that for a lot of people, what is at the root of crying, in particular when people are angry, is a sense of powerlessness.

Totally.

And there's a sense of there is this problem. My anger is alerting me to the fact that there is this problem, and I don't know how to deal with it, or I feel disempowered to deal with it. And I think that that feeling of disempowerment is oftentimes connected to gender. That might be playing a role there. The other side of this, though, is the reactions that people get to their anger based on their gender and their race. And that just comes back to that question. And again, I'm putting this in quotes, but the who gets to be angry. Totally. That we see that white men tend to have their angry opinions validated. That people's perception of white men who are angry go up. They see them as more confident. They see them as stronger. Women and non-whites are oftentimes perceived as less competent. Their opinions are invalidated. They are considered stubborn in all these ways. Those consequences also tend to shape how someone may express their anger. And so there is that disempowerment that I was describing. There's lots of impacts there because now, okay, I'm angry, and I can't really express it the way I want to because if I do, I'm seen as less competent.

And so I'm forced, I'm disempowered in multiple ways.

It's so messed up if you really think about it. If I express my anger in certain ways publicly, I can be seen as hysterical as a woman. That's a keyword that's historically been a thing. My partner, who is a black man, talks to me a lot about the perception of the angry black man and how not only does it come off as stubborn, but dangerous. To people because of racism.

Well, and also how broken, not just our system, but everything. When you think about the first thing that a little boy or a little girl learns is that, what do you hear? Little boys don't cry. You know what I mean? And so from the get-go, that's what men are learning still, I think. I mean, I think it's getting better. But there's still a lot of that. And so what do you do if you can't cry and you can't express that frustration in some way, you get angry, and then you're rewarded for getting angry. A bully is messing with you, but then you got to fight back. It's just the way that we are raised from the beginning.

Absolutely. And the boys don't cry thing, but also, are you a baby? You're crying, are you a baby? Yes, completely. This thing that links crying with infancy. Right. We're undoing it. We're disrupting it here.

Yeah. I'll add to the ways in which that leads to additional stressors. So you talk about your partner Raj, both my sons are adopted and they're both black. And one of the things we often had to talk about is just that, the differing consequences that they will experience as a as a result of expressing anger in any aggressive way or any loud way, voicing it that way. One of the things I've noticed in having these conversations with them, one of them is an athlete. And so we talk about it on the court or on the soccer field, how that is perceived and how the consequences might differ there, that adds a layer of stress to his life that his white counterparts don't experience. And so it has this secondary impact that is a really negative negative piece. So as a dad, I'm constantly battling with this. I need him to understand the realities of emotional expression while also recognizing that invites additional stressors into his life that are going to have some other negative consequence.

Oh, my God. That shit is deep.

Ryan, you have a guide to deciding whether or not you should get angry, and I would love to hear that. I'm not sure in the moment that I always can control that. I I have to tell you guys. Raj knows this. I moved into an apartment that was infested with roaches, and we were dealing with the Shadyest broker in the history of shady brokers. At one point, he texted us, and I knew that I had reached my limit. I turned to my boyfriend Benji, and I said, We have to call him. I've been with Benji for almost three years. I said, You've never seen me like this, but I'm warning you, here's what you're going to see, because I don't get angry like that very often. But when I do, the switch is flipped and I can't control it.

I love personalities like yours, though, super even keeled, but you have your boundary.

I will say what you were saying earlier, Ryan, actually, that got shit done. When I got mad at the broker, he respected that I was angry, and that anger seems useful. But how do we decide whether or not we should get angry?

It is so very, very difficult. I encourage people to ask themselves basically three questions, right? And so question one is, is did I experience poor or unfair treatment? Really important and honestly, not necessarily something people are very good at, right? So we don't have to look too hard to find people who identify an injustice that wasn't really an injustice. So that's one element. But that said, being able to take an honest look at whether or not you experience that poor treatment or that injustice, right? So when I say we don't have to look too hard, January sixth is a nice example of a group of people who seem to think that they experience an injustice, that there's no actual evidence they experience, right? So we'll start there. A second piece is goal blocking. Am I experiencing someone blocking my goals? I want a thing and something is interfering in that thing. So the example you just use is a nice example of both those. There's poor treatment, a version of injustice. You're not being treated very well. It's also blocking your goal of living in a healthy, safe, comfortable apartment. Totally. And so both of those things are happening.

The third piece is probably where people get the most uncomfortable because it ends up feeling like there could be some victim blaming here. But it's basically, what did I do to influence this? And I think it's a really important but difficult element here. And that's, what am I bringing to this interaction? Anger, more often than not, occurs in social situations. It occurs between two people, and there's a tendency to externalize everything that's happening. But it seems very fair to say, okay, is there something I did with how I approach this situation, what I was anticipating from them, how I handled this, how I communicated that exacerbated their response in some way and led to this? So I think it's fair to at least ask those questions and then also to differentiate between how they treated me from what I did. It doesn't necessarily mean, Hey, I deserved that poor treatment. It just means I played a role in it. We talked a little bit about venting online and getting into conflicts online.

What's a healthy way or healthy level of doing that? I personally am very worried about that because when I read other people's complaining comments or posts online, I feel like it's in bad taste. So how do you feel about that?

I think it's really important, and this is true anywhere, but I I think it's particularly true online, is to think about the intent. What is my goal? What am I trying to get out of this? Sometimes it's I want to influence the people around me. Then if that's true, think about the best way to do that. Sometimes it's I just want support I want to see the people who like this, and that'll make me feel a little bit better. That validation, yeah. Sometimes it's just purely... Well, sometimes it's a little more targeted. It's I want the people I'm mad at to see it, in which case, think about if that's really going to lead to any positive outcome or if you're just being mean. Those are all things to factor in. And once you've figured out the intent, I think it informs the how. So if that's what I want, if what I want is support, well, then ask for it. Somehow include in there that that's what you're looking for. If it's that you want to influence people, think about the language you use and how that might influence people. I think that those are all ways that we can do that, venting or ranting online that can make it a little bit more helpful and a little more beneficial and a little more healthy.

I do think that sometimes people, and I've been guilty of this, people are naive to the impact it's having. I think they don't necessarily recognize how many people might see something that they share. And so they don't necessarily think through what the consequences could be of what they're saying or how they're saying it.

Let's say that we're in an altercation. Maybe that's a bad word. We're in some situation, a conflict with someone, and they're really angry. What would you say the number one thing to do is when you're dealing with a really angry person? You had a great tweet I read, and I might be butchering it, but you said something like, Never in the history of calm downs has calm down, calmed down someone. And so I'm guessing calm down is not the thing you want to say. What do you want to do?

I think relax is even worse. It's even more insulting.

Yeah. No, relax never relaxes anyone. Yeah. So I think this is a case where because people are elevated in they're not necessarily thinking as rationally and they're a little bit defensive, you're not going to make as much progress with those direct statements that you want to make. Telling people to do things like just breathe and things like that, those aren't going to have much of an impact. What's more likely to have an impact is trying to model some of those things yourself. One of the things I always think is funny is when people tell people to calm down, they oftentimes say... They either yell it or they're laughing. They're yelling. Another real loud, stern voice. But if you actually back up a little bit, you start speaking a little softer than normal, you start to communicate a little more gentle tone, people actually will inherently match that. This also is rooted in our evolutionary history that we tend to match the people around us in tone. And so by doing that, you end up bringing them down a little bit in a way that's frankly manipulative, right? That you're actually decreasing that elevation. So speaking in that more gentle voice, staying calm yourself, finding ways to ultimately, if they're venting, some minimal encouragers to let them get through that and then have the opportunity to respond and to try and frame that response.

What I don't think you want to do is agree with someone if you don't agree with them. But if you could frame that response in a way that seems validating to let them know you're obviously really upset about this. Let's talk through some solutions together, ways that you can validate their feelings without necessarily validating the cause of those feelings where you may not agree.

Turn the heat down.

Yeah. And now that Ryan is saying this, I've definitely had this done to me, and I didn't realize it. When I'm really heated about something, the person I'm arguing with will be like, I hear you. I hear you. I don't agree, but it's that thing. I'm listening to you. I'm not ignoring you. Which feels so powerful.

No, I think that's it. That's what we want to be heard. Exactly.

How do we stop ourselves or regulate ourselves when you're writing the angry email, quote, unquote?

I love to write.

I love it. Especially as a writer. I will use some words.

But I do regret them often. Of course.

Ten minutes later.

Yeah. I think there's a couple of things about the angry email that are important. I think one of the first things I would say is it goes back to something we said before. Think about the intent. What is it that you're... Why are you sending it? What's the goal? If the goal is literally just to tell someone how angry you are or to make them feel bad in some way, think about whether or not that's going to get you where you want to go in the long run. The second piece is, and related to that, once you know the intent, make sure everything you're writing is framed around that goal. Totally. And a lot of times, making them angry as part of that angry email is probably not going to help you get to that goal. So So consider that. One of the best parts about email versus an in-person interaction is that you've got time. And so you can give yourself 10 minutes to let yourself cool down and then reread it and decide if you want to send it still. You can also ask a friend to read it and say, Hey, will you take a look at this?

Tell me how you'd react to it, and so on. Those are things that will really help you make the of this and be as productive as possible with the email you're trying to send. The only other thing I would add is think about the non-words elements in there, the use of emoji, the use of all caps. Do those things help make your point? Do they actually hurt your point? Think about that again in the context of the broader goal. Why am I sending this?

I'm just thinking of an angry email sent in comic sans. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Yeah.

And the other thing is, don't be afraid to take it offline, too. It might be better to just have the conversation instead of the back and forth over email. Those are all ways to address it.

My mom is a very wise woman, and one of the wisest things she's ever told me, and she's told me this a lot, is sleep on it. Oh, totally. Not just for emails, for everything. She's like, Will you feel this way in 12 hours? And if so, then go for it. Yes. Be angry, do what you need to do.

Because sometimes it's justified. But I love that. I do always believe in just like, there's time. Usually, there's 12 hours.

Usually, it's fine. This makes me think back to what you were saying earlier, Ryan, when we talked about the three things you should think about when you're deciding whether or not to get angry. I wonder if a fourth one or if this is just baked into that is, do you really care enough? Yes. Is it even worth your time to be angry about this?

Yeah, I think you're right. And so the way that's baked into something, so back when we were talking about appraisal, there were really two elements of appraisal. The first piece is my evaluation of the provocation and what is this thing that happened and was it an injustice, all that. The second piece of appraisal is when I evaluate my own ability to cope with it. How bad is this? And that's where I think the do I even care come into play because someone can do something and I can think it's mean, I can think it's blameworthy I can think it's cruel. I can think it's all these bad things, and then decide, but it doesn't really affect me. Totally. And not get angry.

There's this, the poet, Roomme, one of my favorite quotes, loosely translated, If you are irritated by every rub, how will your or get polished. And I love that one because it's like, you actually can't get mad about everything. Got to pick and choose. That's just a recipe for high blood pressure, I feel like.

How bad is this? It's a question I like to ask myself relatively often, and not not just connected to anger, because I think that it's the thing that it'll calm me down when I'm stopped at a stop light. I don't want to be stopped at. What is the actual impact of this? Chances are it's a two-minute delay, maybe not even that. And so be thinking about those things and then using that to inform how you respond emotionally.

That Ryan Noah combo was mind-blowing to me. I'm taking that with me. That's beautiful because you cannot let yourself get riled up about everything.

Yeah. This was so great, Ryan.

Illuminating. I love it.

I feel like I learned so much.

I know. I love this. Will you just come with me everywhere?

I would be happy to. I think that would get expensive. I know.

We really would. Let me get my finances together, and then we'll see what we can do.

I hear it.

Ryan, thank you so much for being here.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I am truly, truly big fan and love talking with you.

It It's time for Better and Five. These are your top five takeaways from this episode.

Number one, getting mad is usually a combination of many factors, from the provocation itself to your general mood that day.

Number two, before you get mad, ask yourself, Was there an injustice? Am I being blocked from a goal? And did I play any part in this?

I sometimes play a part in it. Number three, most of the time, communicating effectively is going to be the best way to process your anger and to feel better.

Number four, I know we all love to send that angry email, but before you do it, ask yourself what your intention is and then maybe take a beat or even sleep on it.

Number five, not everything deserves your anger. Ask yourself if it's really worth it. Okay, Noah, have you been doing anger wrong?

I don't know that I have. I feel like for the most part, I use my anger for good.

You're like an angry superhero.

I completely. I put on my cape and I go do my thing and then I'm okay. And I don't think I get angry a lot. Sure. But I love this episode because it gave me a lot to think about in terms of why we get angry, what's actually happening, and what needs to happen to diffuse it or to harness it like I did with my scummy broker. That was a great time to use my anger. Yeah. And so I like having more ways to think about anger and more pathways to follow for a better conclusion. Absolutely. What do you think? Do you think you've been doing anger wrong? You know what?

Maybe a little. I think I like to not think things and shove them away. And this conversation encouraged me to process a little more, and yet it's work. But I think for my emotional well-being, I would love to know why I get angry about things.

I like what he said, too, about when you were talking about getting on the treadmill and trying to run off some of that anger and how that can be healthy.

Yeah, but I'm also running away from the anger.

Exactly. You can't outrun the anger. So as long as you're doing that, in addition to trying to figure out why you're angry and what you want to do with it, we have options.

We do.

I love an option. I do. Anyway, Okay, until next time. As long as there are things to get wrong, Raj and I are going to be right here to help you do them better.

Love you all.

Do you have something you think you're doing wrong? Email us at amidoingitwrong@huffpost. Com and let us know.

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