Are you less likely to get angry when you’re lying down?

Yes. The always interesting Vaughan Bell explains:

The brain may manage anger differently depending on whether we’re lying down or sitting up, according to a study published in Psychological Science that may also have worrying implications for how we are trying to understand brain function… 

In line with the ‘ready to respond’ theory, when the participants were angry and sitting up, the left frontal lobe was much more active than the right – but when angry and lying down, there was no difference.

First off, the findings provide evidence that body position interacts with how the brain processes emotion, perhaps depending on which actions are immediately possible.

And this isn’t the only way in which the position of your body shapes your thoughts and feelings:

If this seems like a trivial distinction as far as emotion is concerned, it actually has some sound theory behind it. A field of study called ‘embodied cognition‘ has found lots of curious interactions between how the mind and brain manage our responses depending on the possibilities for action.

For example, we perceive distances as shorter when we have a tool in our hand and intend to use it, and wearing a heavy backpack causes hills to appear steeper.

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