I borrowed this image on the brain from a post on imagination as an internal sense in the brain on copiosa.org.

We have all experienced anger.  We know what it is, and we know how we are when we are angry.   We have seen a lot of it among the public concerned about particular issues.  We have seen it in presidential candidates.   The blog post below suggests that we need to take a time out of perhaps 20 minutes before we engage activity that is consequential to ourselves or others.

As a hospital staff worker, one of the trainings we had to undergo was on how to de-escalate tensions when somebody threatens violence, perhaps in a hospital emergency room.  We were told that this is one of the most dangerous places in the hospital, and that to reduce tensions one should always face the person, and keep one’s hands in front of one, palms up.

What happens in the brain when we become angry?  Gerry Vassar, in 2011, explained that all senses feed into the amygdala which decides whether to send the information to the thinking part of the brain, the cortex, or to the reactive part of the brain, the limbic system.

The post on Maya Angelou’s book “Why the Caged Bird Sings“, describes an angry person, who recovered from his anger, and went on to make smart decisions about his life.   A person constantly motivated by anger would most pose a risk to our nation, should he become president.