Whoa, Nelly!

Step away from your phone before you make that angry call. Do not push the send button on that email that YOU WROTE IN ALL CAPS. Hold on before you storm someone's office. I can almost guarantee: You. Will. Regret. It.

Why? As if it weren't bad enough that the nasty stress hormone cortisol can make us overweight, sickly and forgetful, it also appears as though it also makes us make bad decisions. If you think back to my last article , we know that cortisol makes some parts of our body's function slow down (digestion, memory, immune system). Cortisol also flips the switch from our rational, parasympathetic nervous system to our more lizard-brained sympathetic nervous system. This simply means that we have a hair-trigger response to perceived threat (real or not). We become myopic and primal. The best advice, most simple advice I've heard on how to circumvent this knee-jerk reaction to calling someone a Jerk is this: Whatever you feel compelled to do, don't.