"Outsmarting Anger" and the pharmacy in your head

Since I interviewed him for my book Crazy Little Thing: Why Love & Sex Drive Us Mad, Dr. Joseph Shrand has been one of my favorite experts to consult for stories and, on a personal basis, just a joy to talk to. He's terrific at explaining concepts, making one feel at ease and saying the kinds of things that seem so simple and true you wonder why someone had to say it to you for you to get it. One of my favorites - and a key to his latest book - is "When was the last time you got angry at someone who you believed was treating you with respect?"

Answer: you don't. And in his book Outsmarting Anger: 7 Strategies for Defusing Our Most Dangerous Emotion he explains why that is, where anger comes from, how it works chemically in the brain and how you can combat it - in yourself and other people - by very simply changing the chemistry of the situation using nothing but your own behavioral strategies. I got to talk to Dr. Shrand about the book and write about it on Alternet in What Happens in Your Brain When You Get Mad and How to Control It.



Ironically enough, I'm having to use those strategies right now as I write this.

That's because, just clicking on the story, I see that the 1.1k "likes" it had on Facebook a couple of days ago  have disappeared. Had I thought this was possible I'd have taken a screen shot of them to show they were there.

I wish I didn't care but  part of the success of a story these days (sadly, I think) are indicators like "likes" and I feel like I've been robbed blind. So I'm really having to practice what this book preaches at this very moment. One of the first bits of advice is to 'stop, look and listen,' so I'm going to give it some time and then see if I can find out what the problem is and if I can get my rightful likes/shares back. In the meantime I look like this:












but I feel like this:

Will update on how it goes. Meanwhile the fact that I haven't found a way to crawl through the tubes of the internet and found someone to rage at over this is testimony that there's good advice in this book and it works if you work with it. 



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