A a lifetime shrouded in a benign, insulating cloud of estrogen left me ill-prepared to be so naked, shockingly angry as it drained away in perimenopause. It’s sometimes exhilarating, but mostly awful, to be furious about so many things: the government, conflicting dental advice, lack of action on climate change, whatever cat is defecating at my back door. I exist in an exhausting, irrational rolling fart that periodically comes to a point where I vent inappropriately, realize I’m being unreasonable, shamelessly have a word with myself, and then get angry again.
However, help may be at hand, according to research from Japan, which suggests that writing your grievances down on paper and then throwing them away can make you less angry. Study participants were deliberately angry by researchers who criticize their work and add unnecessary insulting comments. Participants then wrote down how they felt and either threw the paper away, shredded it, or kept it. Those who got rid of the newspaper “had completely eliminated their anger”.
Although participants were mostly in their – surely less furious? – early 20s, I had to test if it also worked on midlife anger. Getting rid of my Boris Johnson or Rwanda policy rage was an impossibly big question, but I wrote it down, plus some petty, momentary anger: “Why am I the only one dealing with hummus what expired?”; “Man in gravel driveway methodically spraying small, hopeful dandelion shoots”; “Abrasive Laptop Fan”; and “Towels piled up wet”. Everything classic.
I found the act of crumpling or tearing (I don’t have a shredder) very physically satisfying – a little haptic catharsis. But examining my feelings afterward, I was just as tooth-grindingly angry about Johnson’s existence as ever. The smaller annoyances mostly melted away, but I think the mere act of committing my hummus jumble on paper was enough to show me how ridiculous I was in a rather anger-deflating way. I’m not sure that throwing away my angry scribbles helped. Perhaps what would really help my anger management is a running grievance list, through which I write about everything and everyone I’m angry with. What could possibly go wrong?
