When we are angry or fearful, our adrenaline flows faster and our strength increased by about 20 percent. the liver, pumping sugar into the bloodstream, demand more oxygen from the heart and lungs. The veins become enlarged and the cortical centers where thinking takes place do not perform nearly as well. The blood supply to the problem-solving part of the brain is severely decreased because, under the stress a greater portion of blood is diverted to the body's extremities.
"This is an emotional condition that the person is in, and it means that, while he's beautifully equipped for a brawl, he's very poorly equipped to get a problem solved." - George Odiorne.
In conflict resolution, the first goal is to deal constructively with the emotions. Dealing with the emotional tension of conflict. If unable to bring the emotions, the monkey, back under control or abated then your just going to get into the hostility-loop until such time as blows are thrown. Such a simple concept that tends to be the most difficult to train properly simply because of human survival traits.
Emotional training is something that can be achieved by the daily practice of recognition. To recognize when emotions begin to rise up to whatever occasion and recognize the need to pull it back. But how? The answer is to breathe properly. Slow, deep, diaphragmatic breathing. This process triggers those "opposite" chemicals that will rein in the one's started by the emotional trigger so you can get the logical problem solving parts free from the emotional effects.
Bibliography:
Stiskin, Nahum. "The Looking Glass God: Shinto, Yin Yang, and a Cosmology for Today." Weatherhill. New York. 1972.
The Taijiquan master, Cheng Man-Ching said something like: "as you become less afraid, you grow more relaxed. The more relaxed you are, the less afraid you become."
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