It's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Roz.

So think about the last thing that made you angry.

I'm driving along and there's a really slow driver in front of you.

And get stopped by a train. That's a common thing here for me.

And you're just sitting there. Wasting time.

The kids are yelling in the back and you realize,

oh, it's going to set back my whole day.

Your heart rate increases, your muscles get tense,

and your mind starts to race.

I'm going to be late to this meeting, which means that I'm going to be late to this meeting.

And that's going to be embarrassing because that meeting is with someone important, right?

And pretty soon you're fuming. You're yelling at your kids. You're yelling at the train.

And so all of a sudden I've taken what feels like a relatively small thing

and I've exaggerated its importance into a really, really big, bad thing.

This is psychologist Ryan Martin and Ryan studies why and how people get angry.

Anger is associated with a bunch of consequences.

Everything from physical aggression, physical fights, verbal fights,

property damage, cardiovascular disorders,

other negative emotions, substance abuse problems. I mean, when people have experience anger too

often in great intensity, they are likely to experience some sort of interpersonal or physiological

problems. However, despite all of that, I think a lot of people misunderstand anger.

It's this built-in emotion. Much like sadness, much like fear, much like a lot of other emotions.

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