Quote:
Originally Posted by dogsbody70
using a punch bag is perfectly safe. all this fancy psychology. go out and do something energetic--- useful. when i was upset with no one to talk to i found that punching cushions did help. not punching people.
no doubt many fancy modern ways of thinking think differently but there'S nothing like hard physical work or exercise to wear you out.
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I fully understand what you're saying, and it does make sense. I totally agree with the idea of excercise, and/or picking up a hobby like gardnening, as Columbine said, which requires physical effort also.
In light of what Columbine said though I do think perhaps doing something violent, such as punching a pillow or a punching bag, may be detremental to a person. It causes one to associate the violent act with the emotion of anger. It's like the experiment with Pavlov's dogs . . . whenever he served them dinner he would ring a bell, so that in the end they associated the bell with dinner, so even when he didn't feed them they would still salivate when they heard the bell regardless. I think that if you were to punch something when angry then it would condition you the same way, so when someone really does something to irk you then your first instinct may be to actually punch them too . . .
I'm not saying that this would apply to everyone, as you said you aren't violent and this method works for you, but if you had someone who's emotions are all over the place - basically unstable - as the original poster is, then is it a good idea? You have control over your emotions and can say 'I won't punch someone if I'm angry', but if the OP hasn't that control (which she admits she hasn't) then who's to say she wouldn't punch someone also?
I think a good compromise between the two might be physical sports. Boxing, martial arts, swimming etc., because then you get the excercise and the burst of something phsyical/violent to exert that anger, but at the same time you're being taught the self-control and restraint with it, and its in a controlled environment. Although this is when someone tells me that will be bad conditioning too, in which case I'm out of ideas, lol!