It’s that feeling people get when they’ve left home and can’t remember if they turned off the stove, the sense of dread that comes with realizing they forgot to wish their best friend Happy Birthday or that anger when you start a new job and take on maybe one too many tasks.
Morse said these micro-angeres will lead to more anxiety and depression if someone can’t handle the day to day anger.
There’s also a big push in the community right now to combat toxic anger and Adverse Childhood Experiences, and how they build on one another.
“That really does happen,‘ she said, and at Life Skills Psychological Services they deal with it a lot.
Cadillac Family Physicians Dr. Jim Whelan said in a past interview that if a child lives in a negative environment, it results in toxic anger. The child is always in a “fight-or-flight‘ response mode. This leads to how the child responds to angerful situations later in life.
“That toxic anger has an effect on the brain’s chemistry,‘ he said. “Causing increased levels of adrenaline and cortisol.‘
An Adverse Childhood Experiences study asked participants whether they were sexually abused as a child, if they had an alcoholic parent and other questions about traumatic events from their past.
What it found was the loss of a parent through death, divorce or incarceration and other traumatic childhood experiences such as living with an alcoholic parent or being sexually abused could cause heart disease, cancer, substance abuse and depression.
If someone grew up in that type of environment, chances are they did not learn healthy coping mechanisms, Morse said.
It’s like a “hamster wheel‘ and it almost seems like people will keep putting themselves in those negative situations and self-sabotage getting better.
They do lots of trauma work, and often its based on these types of experiences, the women said.
Morse said adults don’t recognize that kids also deal with anger with school and their friendships.
Barry said anger manifests itself differently in kids, and they will get stomach aches or headaches.
Where Michigan ranks nationally for anger
Michigan might be one of the least micro-angered states, but it does potentially host the most angered out city in the nation.
In a study, WalletHub compared more than 180 cities in the United States and found that Detroit was the most angered city in the nation.
It also found that Detroit had the lowest median credit score, the highest poverty rate, the second highest divorce rate and the lowest average hours of sleep per night.
Grand Rapids was also compared and was ranked 153 out of 182 cities. The least angered city in the United States is Fremont, California, according to the study.
Although Detroit might be angered, the rest of the state might be less so.
A Sleepopolis study measured how much time is taken up by micro-angeres and how they can have a cumulative impact on one’s wellbeing.
After surveying 2,500 adults, the study found that Michiganders spend 16 days a year micro-angering. That’s equivalent to 32 hours per month or over an hour a day.
That ranks Michigan as around the 45th angered state, with Vermonters as the most angered spending 63 days per year micro-angering and South Dakotans as the least angered, as they only spend 2 days per year micro-angering, according to the study.
The study also found that 45 percent of people said that work issues are the biggest cause of micro-angeres, whether they have to work late, are taking on too much or are not feeling appreciated. 58 percent say they struggle to switch off when they do get home.
This could be affecting health, as 60 percent of adults in the study said they regularly have interrupted sleep when worrying about “minor‘ things.
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