Revenge is unhealthy

If you have experienced love at first sight, think what made the stranger stand out to you.

• Did the person resemble someone you had a relationship with before?
• Did the person cause you to feel nostalgic about an old friend? If so, that "love" may have been only a subconscious connection, where your brain remembered a positive impact of a previous relationship.

Knowing this, you may understand why some are certain about the possibility of love at first sight.

But it doesn't make the potential resulting breakup easier. It leaves us feeling like we lost something destiny had intended.

For F.O.B.O. to happen, you have to have multiple options. It is mostly a consequence of our world in which everything seems possible.

To beat FOBO, find the Mostly Fine Decision. This is the outcome you’d be ok with, even if it’s not the absolute best possible one.

Revenge is the desire to retaliate to someone who has injured us or made us suffer, either physically or mentally.

Studies revealed that the feeling of revenge is extremely rewarding to the brain. The region of the brain called ‘caudate nucleus’ is stimulated when the victim imagines taking revenge to punish the other person.

While movies portray that being able to successfully take revenge will make one feel better, and find some closure, the long term effects of avenging oneself are completely opposite.

The cycle of retaliation continues after seeking revenge, and the pain of the original offence is re-opened, with the emotional wounds aggravated.

• They pretend to be innocent, ignorant, or confused when they did something awful. This tactic is to make you question your judgment.
• They don't give a straight answer to a straight question, but evade the question or change the subject when cornered.
• They lie by omission or distortion by deliberately being vague.
• They may either respond with charm and flattery, of will suddenly be angry.
• They'll play the victim and make themselves out to be the one in distress.
• They rationalize by giving a plausible excuse for engaging in inappropriate behavior, or they will downplay their behavior.
• Covert aggressives don't feel bad, but they know you do. They will send you on a guilt trip so you will lighten your accusations.

• Let go of the pretense that if you play nice, they will play nice.
• Know your vulnerabilities and focus on the one thing that really needs to change: yourself. You can only control what you do.
• Set some boundaries for yourself. Be prepared for the consequences and set a support system.
• Memorize the list of tactics used by an aggressive person. Then it is easier to recognize the attack.
• If you're willing to accept an excuse, know that they will fling excuses at you until one stick.
• Stay calm and polite, and avoid sarcasm, hostility, or threats.
• Without being rude, be specific about what you expect or want from the other person. Aggressives will only participate if they can get something out of it. If they have to lose, they'll make sure you go down too. Ensure you propose win-win solutions

• You're filled with thoughts of retribution or revenge
• You enjoy feeling superior
• You don't know how to resolve the situation
• You're addicted to the adrenaline that anger provides
• You self-identify as a "victim"
• You're afraid that by forgiving you have to re-connect—or lose your connection.

If you decide you are willing to forgive, find a good place and time to be alone with your thoughts.

• Think about the incident that angered you. Accept that it happened, how you felt about it and how it made you react.
• Acknowledge the growth you experienced as a result of what happened. What did it make you learn about yourself, or about your needs and boundaries?
• Think about the other person. When you were hurt, the other person was trying to have a need met. What do you think this need was and why did the person go about it in such a hurtful way?
• Decide if you want to tell the other person that you have forgiven him or her.

One thing that often helps people to forgive is receiving an apology.

A good apology ideally has three parts: an admission of responsibility, a demonstration of sorrow, and doing something to remedy the offence, or prevent a repetition of it. 

An apology is not telling others we feel sorry they are angry it is telling them we understand why they are angry with us, regret making them feel that way, and wanting to take their anger away. 

An effective apology is showing the person we understand why they are hurting.

Forgiveness takes time for most. Shock and anger often come before forgiveness. Deal with the hurt feelings before moving into forgiveness.

The act of forgiving is one of realizing that holding onto the anger and resentment no longer carries the same weight on us.

One roadblock people face with forgiveness is the idea of being seen as "weak" and saying that what the offender did is excusable.

It requires more strength to forgive. Staying angry, resentful, and vengeful can have a detrimental impact on your physical and emotional health as well as your relationships.

Passive aggressiveness involves giving backhanded compliments, ignoring a co-worker, or purposefully excluding someone.

Passive-aggressive behavior is a coping or defense mechanism. Toxic employees use this outlet when they feel threatened, jealous, or insecure.

Physical exercise can release anger. Fit in exercise before work. Also, take walks every few hours to get away from the computer screen.

Jealousy is a common trait that can turn toxic at work. You might express jealousy upfront or through passive-aggressive behaviors.

At the heart of jealousy lies insecurity. To overcome this, stop comparing yourself with others. Instead, keep focused on your own goals. Obsessing about other people's achievements can distract you from your own successes.

Ancient Indian theories differ from the standard neuroscience view about deep sleep being a blackout state where nothing is left, not even consciousness.

It is stated that a certain subtle awareness is present, even in dreamless sleep, though there is no time measurement tool for the brain to put that in memory. That is why the brain does not know the time when we wake up from deep sleep.

A 2013 study showed that meditation has some positive effect on electro-physical brain patterns during sleep, enhancing our capacity to process information and also maintain a heightened level of awareness.

Managing your anger is all about managing your thoughts. Your thoughts will determine how you respond.

Strategies like cognitive behavioral therapy can teach people healthier thought patterns.

It helps a user read a set of blood-boiling scenarios and rates how likely they are to have each of six possible reactions. It enables you to recognize unhelpful thoughts that cause a knee-jerk reaction. For example: When you are driving through a residential area, and someone backs their car out of a driveway and nearly hits you. There are six possible reactions:

• "They did that just so I'd have to stop." This is a fallacy known as misattributing causation - you don't know the other person's intentions.
• "They almost totaled my car." It catastrophizes a scary situation into utter destruction.
• "Nobody knows how to drive anymore" overgeneralizes a specific situation into a universal truth.
• "I was here first. They shouldn't have gotten in my way." Here you make an unreasonable demand that somehow other people should know where you're going.
• "That dumb jerk!" is inflammatory labeling that dehumanizes and insults the other person.
• "He must not have seen me" is adaptive and more likely to calm you down.