When I was four years old, my parents, my sister and I drove to the theater to watch Mary Poppins. It was one of the first films I ever saw and I was completely blown away by Dick Van Dyck’s energy, enthusiasm and cheerful personality.
Did you know he recently turned 100? And he is still doing very well.
Naturally, people want to know his secret. When asked how he’s aged so gracefully, he wasn’t tight-lipped dietan intense exercise regimen or an expensive supplement. He attributed his lifetime to maintaining a positive outlook and making conscious choices do not get angry.
One of my first childhood the heroes ended up with the exact life that he portrayed on the silver screen. His secret is perfectly consistent with what I’ve found in the last 30 years of studying the higher reaches of human psychology: A long, happy life doesn’t come from avoiding tragedy or disappointment. It is about the education of the internal environment, where anger cannot survive for long.
Physiology of anger
What does chronic anger actually do to our body?
When we hold grudges, our bodies are in constant “fight or flight” mode. It floods our system with cortisol and adrenaline. Think of it like pouring an acidic substance over your internal organs. Over time, this chronic inflammation wears us down, damages our blood vessels, weakens our immune system, and accelerates cellular aging.
There is a famous saying: Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Conversely, having a positive mental outlook is like feeding your body a fresh, organic salad. But this raises an important question: If I never get angry don’t i just practice toxic positive and suppress my true feelings?
In my experience, I have seen many people who are kind and gentle on the outside, but inside they are in great, unrecognizable pain. Defiance is dangerous; if we don’t deal with our emotions properly, they make us sick or manifest as mental disorders. We must learn to process anger without it poisoning us.
The 90-second rule and the “Bear”
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a well-known neuroanatomist, has a physiological lifespan feelings. He discovered that when we are aroused, the chemical spray of anger takes exactly 90 seconds to process through our bloodstream.
After a minute and a half, the physical reaction ends. If we are angry after 90 seconds, it is because of our brain to choose to reconsider the ideas that initially created the cycle.
When I get angry, I call it “my bear”. When the bear comes out, I give it 90 seconds. I watch it, I understand and I don’t deny it. But the most important thing is: I don’t feed it and I don’t act on it. I just let the chemical wave continue its course. I become a watcher of my anger because I know it will soon pass.
When I am calm, I can consciously choose whether I should handle the situation. Usually, I don’t. But many of us feed the bear. We incite injustice, create stories and make anger worse until the bear wants to come out and tear people apart. It never goes well.
Spirit anointing
We must find ways to return to joy. Look at the great cellist Pablo Casals. He lived up to 96 years. In recent years he suffered from terrible arthritis and emphysema; could barely walk in the morning. But he found that when he sat down at the piano to play Bach, his breathing stabilized, his posture straightened, and his arthritis seemed to disappear.
By creating a passionate and positive engagement with life, he physically lubricates his body. My grandmother, who lived for 90 years, was like that. He had his aches and pains, but when we sat together playing board games, the complaints completely disappeared.
In “Blue Zones” – areas where people live the longest, such as Okinawa, Japan – there is no word retirement. have Ikigai“the reason for rising in the morning”. Their culture emphasizes low stressoften laughand move past conflicts quickly. They choose not to carry the burden of aging with chronic anger. They are a whole community of Dick Van Dykes!
Cultivating your 100-year-old smile
How do we get started today? Here are three practices to break the cycle of anger:
1. Ask: Will this matter in five years? The next time someone cuts you off in the driveway or makes a rude comment, ask yourself if it will matter five years from now. If the answer is no, don’t power it for more than 90 seconds. Let the bear go back to its den.
2. Hunting Humor. Train your brain to look for the absurdity in a situation, not the offense. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus advised that if someone speaks ill of you, do not be offended, but respond: “That person did not know the rest of my faults, because he only did not mention them.” Laughter immediately breaks the cortisol cycle.
3. Create a history of ending anger. If you have a legitimate disagreement with a spouse or friend, allow yourself to be angry, but put a strict limit on it. Say, “I’ll be mad about it until dinner, but then I’ll let it go.” Reliving the old will only poison your soul.
In life, we cannot control traffic, the economy, or how other people treat us. But we have absolute sovereignty over how much anger lives in our bodies. Choose to let it pass you by and anchor your life in joy.
And if you need a little help finding that joy, maybe it’s time to watch Mary Poppins again
