While you may think that clenching your fists and gritting your teeth is a sign that you are about to lose control, in fact, those classic muscle tensing moves may actually be helping you keep your cool. Really. According to new research, our angry fists of frustration may actually help us find our inner Zen.
The study gets more fascinating. What if we told you that clenching your fists when hearing news of a major national disaster might make you more charitable? That’s right, the participants that clenched their fists in anger when hearing about a tragedy, in turn gave more money to the cause.
How is it possible that physically acting “angry” makes us, well, better people? The researchers suspect that when we are faced with a major problem we may naturally clench our fists. This physical manifestation of our inner emotions may ground us and allow us to pull from our inner strength. We literally “grit” our teeth through the bad times for a reason, because by clenching our muscles we’re physically summoning our willpower.
Mzsunflower's Say What? 