How To Manage Destructive Anger

We have all experienced anger at one point, either as a brief annoyance or as a full blown fury and rage. In similarity to other emotions, anger goes along with physiological and biological changes. Your heart rate and blood pressure go up as well as your energy hormones.

Anger is a normal and generally healthy human emotion. However the problem starts when it gets out of hand and becomes vicious, leading to problems in the office, in your home, in your social interactions and in the overall quality of your existence. 

Anger can be triggered by external or internal factors. For instance you could be angry at a particular person at work or encounter rage during a traffic jam, or a cancelled flight, or a botched date with your girlfriend.  You could also be furious about personal problems, while memories of an unpleasant encounter with a hotel receptionist, with a very bad attitude, can also unleash angry feelings.

Venting Anger

The natural way to vent anger is to react aggressively. Anger is normal adaptive response to intimidations; it stimulates strong, often violent, emotions and behaviors that push us to stand to fight and protect ourselves when attacked.  In view of this innate desire to survive, some amount of anger, therefore, is necessary to meet this goal.

That being said, social norms, knowing the right thing to do, and legal restrictions stop us from physically hitting indiscriminately at people who infuriate or get on our nerves, also restricting how far we can let our anger boil. 

There are three major ways people deal with angry feelings: expressing, suppressing, and calming.  

1. Expressing your angry feelings in an assertive non-aggressive manner is the healthiest way to express anger.  In order to do this, you have to master how to communicate your requests clearly and get them done without upsetting others. Being assertive is not being forceful or difficult; it is about respecting yourself and others. 

2. Suppressing anger in order to redirect is another way to deal with anger. You hold your anger by not thinking about it and divert your attention on something else.  The purpose is to suppress your anger and turn it into a more positive behaviour.  But the problem in this type of response is that by not allowing an outward expression, it remains bottled up and may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression. Suppressed anger can also lead to compulsive show of anger, such as rather than confront people directly, you get back at them indirectly without telling them why, or a continuous mocking and aggressive defiance. Such people are yet to learn how to express their anger positively, hence likely to have issues in their relationships. 

3. Calm in the face of anger is difficult but possible. Calming down is being able to control your internal responses as well as your external reaction.

Controlling Your Anger

To be able to control your anger, it’s important to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes.  While it may be impossible to remove or avoid the people or things that infuriate you, or change them, but you can master how to control your responses. If you find yourself acting in ways that seem out of control and frightening, you might need help finding better ways to deal with this emotion. 

Then again there are some people who get easily and forcefully angrier than the average person. There are also those who don’t respond emotionally in an earth shattering manner, but still severely irritable and sullen. Easily angered people don’t always curse and throw things, but at times go into their shells, bad-tempered, or get physically ill.  They also have a low tolerance for frustration, that is they assume they shouldn’t be exposed to frustration, inconvenience, or anger. They’re unable to go with the flow, and easily angry if the circumstances seem one way or another unjust, for instance when they’re corrected for a minor mistake. 

One of the reasons, why some people are angrier than others, may be genetic or biological. For instance, evidence exists about some kids born short-tempered, overly sensitive, and easily infuriated.  Another reason may be how we are brought up to respond to anger. Anger is frequently perceived as undesirable. Hence we are taught not to display it, while it’s alright to display fretfulness, depression, or other negative emotions, but certainly not anger. Consequently we are unable to deal with anger or direct it positively. Family background is also significant. Normally, people who get upset easily come from families that are   troublesome, disorderly, and poor at expressing their emotions.

Is uncontrollable anger a good thing?

It is a dangerous belief to let your anger blow out of proportion, because some people use this theory to hurt others mercilessly.  Research has found letting your anger ‘hang out’ actually worsens violent rage and doesn’t help you or your victim resolve the problem. Psychologists advise it’s better to identify what causes your anger and then cultivate attitude that keep you from going over the edge.

Is counselling an answer?

If you think your anger is really out of control, beyond what is regarded as normal, and destroying your relationship and other vital areas of your life, counselling may be an option to assist you in handling anger better. A licensed mental health professional or a psychologist can work with you to develop various methods for altering your thoughts and your conducts.  Depending on the circumstances and the counselling methods used, a highly angry person can move closer to middle range of anger in about eight or ten weeks. But this shouldn’t be your only course of action to help you get in touch with your feelings and express them.  You may need to do a lot of work on your own, particularly learn self-restraint, listen more, communicate better, be patient, and most important cultivate a healthier lifestyle. The latter means healthy eating, exercise, avoid negative stressors, sleep well, manage your weight, dump negative pick-me-ups like smoking, alcohol or drugs, and work on self-development.

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