MRI Shoes Mentally Saying the Word "Angry" Makes You Less Angry

And one technique taught in mindfulness meditation is naming your emotions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)... found that assigning names to negative emotions turns down the intensity of activity in the amygdala — an almond-sized sector of the brain that acts like an alarm system: When you witness a car crash, argue with your spouse or get yelled at by your boss, it’s your amygdala’s job to set off a cascade of stress-related reactions.But if you simply name the distressing event, Lieberman says, you can wield more power over your amygdala’s freak-out. “When you attach the word ‘angry,’” he explains, “you see a decreased response in the amygdala.”