Ways To Think About Anger And How To Manage It

Anger can be understood in different contexts based on physiological, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. The common basis for defining anger is that it is an intense emotional state provoked by internal or external factors. The American Psychological Association defines anger as "an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately wronged you." It can also be understood as a physiological expression necessary for survival. When viewed through the lens of psychology, anger is considered a positive emotion in the context of expressing negative feelings and serving as motivation to find solutions to problems (American Psychological Association).

An important concept to consider when discussing anger is the "anger iceberg," It explains that when we experience anger, other emotions are often hidden beneath the surface. These emotions may include loneliness, betrayal, jealousy, embarrassment, fear, guilt, and rejection. These dormant feelings lie beneath the outward expression of anger. Susan David also emphasizes that anger can be a symptom of other unexpressed emotions. It is crucial to identify the underlying emotions and address the root cause of anger first. There are numerous reasons which can trigger anger in our minds.

When things don't go as expected

We naturally tend to set expectations from situations and people around us. When things don't happen the way we want, it outrages us.

When we feel something that happened to us is unjust

Anger surfaces as we encounter that some action or consequence directed at us is unfair due to class, race, or gender we belong to.

When there is a blockage in achieving our goals due to factors beyond our control

We, as humans, have dreams and desires to be fulfilled. We can alter the things acting as an impediment to our goal if it is in our control by amending our behaviour and actions. However, in certain instances, factors outside our control block us from achieving desired outcomes.

Anger directed towards oneself

We do have an inner voice that guides us to do things that should be done or actions that need to be taken up. Still, we might fail and end up being a slave to our habits, procrastination, unwanted desires, and drowning in guilt or regret over past actions.

This could be due to everyday hassles.

Day-to-day hassles gradually feed the anger, and it might explode someday. Daily annoyances can bottle up, and when the jar gets full, it needs an outlet that can come to the surface as anger outbursts. Some examples are traffic snarls, uncooperative colleagues, playground bullies, and lines of slow-moving public offices.

Conflicting relationships

Arguments with people we regularly interact with, misunderstanding, miscommunication, and impulsive reactions becoming a natural pattern to get back at a situation set the stage for anger ignition. Some people in our environment (work or home) provoke others, which can shoot up these tendencies again.

Anger can also be triggered under the influence of a substance

Consuming substances pave a smooth path for expressing suppressed and unexpressed anger. Often, this anger gets directed at submissive targets and can have serious consequences.

Impact of media

Electronic media showing violent scenes may breed anger and violence, particularly in children. Murray, J. P. et al. (2011), in "A plea for concern regarding violent children," concluded that there are true, harmful effects of viewing violence and there is a great need for concern parents, policymakers, and professionals regarding the unbridled expansion of media violence directed to youngsters.

Childhood experiences/traumas

Unresolved anger in childhood caused due to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, history of substance abuse, and parental separation/divorce increase the likelihood of high-risk behaviour and significantly determine the pattern of future relationships. Such experiences can instil anger and aggressive behaviour, which might be directed at submissive targets. The issue of anger in these cases can have roots in childhood experiences, and it's important to recognize its origins.

Anger triggered by not being able to reach goals

Both internal and external factors act as barriers to achieving our goals. Internal factors like procrastination, difficulty in delaying gratifications, lack of focus, concentration, willpower, resilience, and patience are major barriers preventing us from reaching our goals.

“The cost of procrastination is the life you could have lived”.

The popular saying emphasizes acting upon your dreams and goals and owning your journey. We can't just sit back and think about the goals. Practical effort can be taught by practising affirmations, visualizing goals, and giving our best at whatever we do. Certain factors like community, society, culture, facilities (income, resources, basic amenities), authority, weather, government, upbringing/conditioning, or location can also hinder achieving goals.

There is no doubt when it comes to accepting that anger has severe mental and physiological consequences. This can include disturbed breathing patterns; breathing becomes rapid and shallow as we don't inhale to the lungs' full capacity; high blood pressure, mental fatigue, difficulty in sleeping, hyperactivity, neurological damage, hypertension, headache, and immune system weakening.

Mental fatigue

Boiling up with angry emotions can make one feel burned out and exhausted. It consumes a lot of vital energy, thus causing fatigue and tiredness.

Increased sadness

Inappropriate expressions of anger or bottling up robs us of joy and happiness. It makes our consciousness centred on unhappiness and stress.

Social Withdrawal

There might be a possibility that anger can hamper our social life due to a few reasons. One doesn't feel like meeting anyone when occupied with stress and low mood. Another could be one might end up disturbing communication with other people. They might act aggressively, get irritable, or be unkind and rude.

Low mood

Emotion can make us feel unhappy and not being satisfied with anything. If we get angry often, we don't even realize when the sadness cripples down, leading to constant low mood and tiredness.

Effects our intentions

Anger affects our intentions in subtle ways. We might undertake an action to prove someone wrong; it might be motivated by revenge or getting back at someone. These ideas and actions hinder our psychological and spiritual growth.

Unhealthy relationship

Repetitive yelling, screaming, criticism, arguments, or infuriating triggered and expressed through any act can make relations troublesome and exasperating.

How to be better at anger?

Habit is repeating an act that gradually becomes a part of you. Everyday exposure and expression of anger projected on trivial and significant matters can habituate anger to become a basic trigger response to situations. Breaking the habit of anger is like building another habit of constantly breaking it; a few steps to follow are:

Accept

The first step to dealing with an overwhelming emotion is to accept its existence. Acknowledge that anger exists and analyze the situation/reasons for it. Building acceptance is the basis of dealing with your emotions; it's as simple as saying to yourself, "Yes, I'm feeling anger, sadness, jealousy, lust, greed," without judging yourself as our morals, beliefs, and virtues might not allow us to experience the emotion fully.

Introspect

After acceptance comes introspection which involves reflecting upon the reasons for feeling anger. Introspection opens the door to understanding the origin of specific emotions. Knowing the root cause paves the way for deep-rooted patterns to come to the surface and also helps to recognize specific situations or people which might trigger anger.

Based on this understanding, we can take small steps to gradually progress in taking control of our emotions, communicating our needs, and setting healthy boundaries. This way, we can minimize or nullify the impact of the trigger.

Decrease expectations

We often expect things to turn out how we want, especially when working for it. Likewise, we have set expectations for people in our lives, and when they fail to meet those, we feel disappointed and annoyed over long periods.

The gradual decrease in expectations allows us to set expectations that can be met and are not unrealistically demanding. Conveying our expectations through healthy conversation also benefits the people involved.

Let go of things you can't control

“There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” — Seneca

It's the golden rule to do the best with what you got and let go of factors or people which stand beyond our control. Fussing about these things aggravates worry and stress, which are detrimental to physical, mental, and emotional health.

Channelizing anger in the right direction

Sometimes uncontrollable anger needs an instant outlet which comes in the form of physical or verbal aggression, harming self, others, or things around. The appropriate physical expression of anger includes doing push-ups, running, punching a pillow, writing it down, and talking to some other person (not involved in a fight) about it.

Self-regulation teaches us to become more aware of our emotions and identify the underlying reasons or dormant feelings that might contribute to anger. Awareness and acceptance of emotion, journaling, healthy self-talk, monitoring breath, and managing automatic negative thoughts enhance our ability to deal with emotional upheaval.

Seeking professional help is the right step when these self-practices don't contribute much to dealing with emotions. Sometimes we are too overwhelmed to analyze and introspect on our own. Being drowned in a particular emotion obfuscates the true picture, and a professional therapist can give us perspectives that lie dormant within us but are inaccessible due to our present emotional state.