Keep screaming: why letting it all out, especially for women, can make you calmer and happier
One afternoon at the start of confinement, I took my two young children to the garden and told them to scream. "Go ahead," I said, setting a timer. "Shout as loud as you want. I'll join you." We had been in the house, socially distant for over a month at that time. The children's routine had been completely disrupted and they were confused and agitated; my husband and I ran full time jobs as well as full time child care. I juggled grief, trauma, household chores, childcare, writing. I was tired of keeping all the stress bubbling up inside and tired of telling the kids to stop making noise. I was also aware that even in the most gender-equitable households, parents are more likely to ask girls to be quiet than boys. What if we published all of a sudden? How about we let it all hang out?
The kids looked at each other, confused, wondering if I was being sarcastic. But then they started. It came to me less easily. After decades of telling myself that shouting was inappropriate, I could really only do a weak imitation of someone shouting. I felt dumb, too aware of how I looked or what I looked like, what the neighbors might think of me. "Is everything alright ?" one of them asked with a nervous laugh over the fence.
A day or two after screaming in the garden, it felt like 'a valve had burst and all the frustrations and stress erupted with unexpected force. We quickly ran around the garden waving our arms until we collapsed in a heap together on the ground laughing, our legs intertwined. Slowly, we found that the children were also calmer and less likely to throw temper tantrums and temper tantrums. There was a distinct feeling of elation that lasted for the rest of the day. For me, at least.
I'm a behavioral scientist, and the more I researched the psychological effects of structured screaming, the more I realized that this discharge of Emotions trigger neuropathy - a physical response, a release of pent-up anger in a conscious way, rather than letting it flare up in a haphazard way. Yelling in this way can release endorphins, happiness hormones, much like a high we get after exercise. These endorphins, along with peptides produced by the pituitary gland, can together have an emboldening effect by triggering receptors in the brain to reduce pain and increase strength. I could feel my muscles relaxing and becoming more aware of the sounds and smells around me.
Primal Scream Therapy became very popular in the 70s with people like John Lennon and Yoko Ono but I didn't see our shouting sessions in the same way. Rather than ruminating on our stress and anger, I allowed us to float away for a short time, reclaiming our anger, sadness and frustration and all the associated emotions that were considered bad for us as women. The first step towards this was recognizing and accepting that these are all valid emotions that need an outlet, not to be rejected or hidden or pushed inside.
Screamingis considered to have enormous benefits in Chinese medicine. Twelve years ago, on a visit to China, I had seen men and women gather each morning in the gardens around the city to shout together. One of my distinct memories of Xian is the reverberation of screams in the neighborhood where we were. According to Qigong Grandmaster Nan Lu (who has several videos on YouTube), the energy that fuels liver wellness needs to flow, but it can become clogged with frustration. Its remedy is to tremble like a noisy tree. To do this, stand up straight, then lower your body towards the ground and come up, swaying like a tree in the wind. The idea of standing up seems very empowering to me, especially since girls are told to shrink from a very young age. Shaking your whole body, stretch your fingertips skyward and, gathering all your frustration, release it with a loud cry.
As you grow older, every Bollywood movie that I watched reinforced the 'damsel in distress' stereotype, with an elegant melancholy considered a desirable quality in every great lady, while expressions of strong emotions were always associated with a harridan, a vixen or a shrew. The goddess Kali is interpreted as a symbol of death, her face twisted into an ugly scream, and is used to remind women that the expression of emotions, such as anger, can be all-consuming and destructive.
< figure id= "4d460f16-de26-46f4-ae5d-b35a4ea35baf" data-spacefinder-role="inline" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-10khgmf">
One afternoon at the start of confinement, I took my two young children to the garden and told them to scream. "Go ahead," I said, setting a timer. "Shout as loud as you want. I'll join you." We had been in the house, socially distant for over a month at that time. The children's routine had been completely disrupted and they were confused and agitated; my husband and I ran full time jobs as well as full time child care. I juggled grief, trauma, household chores, childcare, writing. I was tired of keeping all the stress bubbling up inside and tired of telling the kids to stop making noise. I was also aware that even in the most gender-equitable households, parents are more likely to ask girls to be quiet than boys. What if we published all of a sudden? How about we let it all hang out?
The kids looked at each other, confused, wondering if I was being sarcastic. But then they started. It came to me less easily. After decades of telling myself that shouting was inappropriate, I could really only do a weak imitation of someone shouting. I felt dumb, too aware of how I looked or what I looked like, what the neighbors might think of me. "Is everything alright ?" one of them asked with a nervous laugh over the fence.
A day or two after screaming in the garden, it felt like 'a valve had burst and all the frustrations and stress erupted with unexpected force. We quickly ran around the garden waving our arms until we collapsed in a heap together on the ground laughing, our legs intertwined. Slowly, we found that the children were also calmer and less likely to throw temper tantrums and temper tantrums. There was a distinct feeling of elation that lasted for the rest of the day. For me, at least.
I'm a behavioral scientist, and the more I researched the psychological effects of structured screaming, the more I realized that this discharge of Emotions trigger neuropathy - a physical response, a release of pent-up anger in a conscious way, rather than letting it flare up in a haphazard way. Yelling in this way can release endorphins, happiness hormones, much like a high we get after exercise. These endorphins, along with peptides produced by the pituitary gland, can together have an emboldening effect by triggering receptors in the brain to reduce pain and increase strength. I could feel my muscles relaxing and becoming more aware of the sounds and smells around me.
Primal Scream Therapy became very popular in the 70s with people like John Lennon and Yoko Ono but I didn't see our shouting sessions in the same way. Rather than ruminating on our stress and anger, I allowed us to float away for a short time, reclaiming our anger, sadness and frustration and all the associated emotions that were considered bad for us as women. The first step towards this was recognizing and accepting that these are all valid emotions that need an outlet, not to be rejected or hidden or pushed inside.
Screamingis considered to have enormous benefits in Chinese medicine. Twelve years ago, on a visit to China, I had seen men and women gather each morning in the gardens around the city to shout together. One of my distinct memories of Xian is the reverberation of screams in the neighborhood where we were. According to Qigong Grandmaster Nan Lu (who has several videos on YouTube), the energy that fuels liver wellness needs to flow, but it can become clogged with frustration. Its remedy is to tremble like a noisy tree. To do this, stand up straight, then lower your body towards the ground and come up, swaying like a tree in the wind. The idea of standing up seems very empowering to me, especially since girls are told to shrink from a very young age. Shaking your whole body, stretch your fingertips skyward and, gathering all your frustration, release it with a loud cry.
As you grow older, every Bollywood movie that I watched reinforced the 'damsel in distress' stereotype, with an elegant melancholy considered a desirable quality in every great lady, while expressions of strong emotions were always associated with a harridan, a vixen or a shrew. The goddess Kali is interpreted as a symbol of death, her face twisted into an ugly scream, and is used to remind women that the expression of emotions, such as anger, can be all-consuming and destructive.
< figure id= "4d460f16-de26-46f4-ae5d-b35a4ea35baf" data-spacefinder-role="inline" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-10khgmf">What's Your Reaction?
