Anger is a healthy emotion. It has varying intensities ranging from mild irritation to intense rage or fury. As well as with other emotions, some physiological and biological changes accompany anger.
For example, when you’re angry:
- Your heart rate increases
- Levels of energy hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline go up
- Your blood pressure also increases
Anger is caused by internal and external factors. You can be angry because of a person, event, or ruminating on personal problems that make you angry.
This emotional state is natural. It’s an adaptive response to threats that helps you to protect yourself when you feel danger.
However, if not well-managed, anger can result in aggressive behavior that can lead to a variety of problems. Therefore, it’s crucial to know how to keep it in check and deal with it healthily. Online therapy is one of the most preferable ways to get help with it today.
Why Do Some People Get Angrier Than Others?
Everyone gets angry at some point. However, some people seem to get angrier than others because even of the slightest issue.
Why is this? There could be a plethora of reasons for this reaction. Some of the common causes of extreme anger include:
- Medical reasons (like hyperactive thyroid)
- Trauma
- Mental health problems
- Poor parenting and growing up issues
- Inability to deal with fear, embarrassment, or failure
How Do We Deal with Anger?
As we’ve mentioned, anger is a natural emotion. And for most people, the instinctive, natural way to express it is by responding aggressively. When you’re feeling attacked or threatened, and it makes you angry, your first instinct is to lash out or respond in a similar way to the cause of the threat.
However, it’s not advisable to lash out at everyone and everything that makes you angry. Common sense puts a limit on how far we take out anger. People use a combination of conscious and unconscious techniques to deal with anger.
The three ways of dealing with this emotion include:
- Expressing
- Suppressing
- Calming
Expressing
Everyday factors and triggers are what causes anger. And the important thing is to know how to deal with your emotions without taking them too far.
Expressing your anger means clarifying your needs in an assertive, non-aggressive manner that doesn’t involve hurting others. This is the healthiest way to express it.
Suppressing
Some people choose not to deal with their anger and suppress their emotions instead. Thus people hold it, stop thinking about it, and focus on something positive.
The goal is to inhibit the anger and redirect it to more constructive behavior.
The danger with this approach is that there’s a high risk of turning the emotions inward on yourself because there isn’t any outward expression. The result of this is rumination, hypertension, depression, and high blood pressure. It doesn’t work long-term.
Unexpressed anger can also lead to passive-aggressive behavior.
Calming
Calming down is different from suppression. This anger response involves controlling one’s outward behavior but also dealing with internal responses.
The process involves taking a deep breath, calming yourself down, and waiting for the feelings to subside.
Why Should We Manage Anger?
It’s crucial to learn how to control anger because it can cause serious problems if left unchecked. Some of the negative effects of extreme aggressiveness include:
- Saying things you regret
- Yelling at your loved ones
- Affecting your well-being
- Depression, stress, and anxiety
- Physical health problems
- Losing motivation
In a nutshell, uncontrolled and unmanaged anger will affect your relationships, well-being, and overall health.
Anger Management Techniques That Can Help Keep Anger at Bay
So, is there anything you can do to manage your anger issues and respond better? Yes. Consider the following approaches:
Relaxation
One of the best ways to deal with anger is to focus on relaxation exercises. Breathing and progressive muscle relaxation exercises are the best for this. You can do them immediately and discreetly.
So whether you’re angry at the dinner table or at work, you can use these techniques to calm down. However, these exercises require practice. The more you do it, the better it will work for you.
Cognitive Restructuring
Cognitive-behavioral interventions also go a long way in helping you control your anger. The process involves redirecting your thoughts to something positive when you feel intense emotions.
When there’s no fuel for aggressiveness, you’re less likely to give in to aggressive behavior.
Problem-Solving
Another effective way to deal with anger is conflict resolution. Instead of resulting in outbursts every time someone does something to upset you, try to resolve the conflict.
The intense emotions you experience can prevent resolving the problem.
Using Humor
When you feel yourself getting angry in a situation, try using some humor when getting your point across. This way, you will save yourself from intense experiences and won’t hurt the other person or get their defenses up.
Changing Your Environment
Sometimes, walking away from an upsetting situation is the best thing you can do. Take a walk or step away from the situation instead of reacting. This will give you time to think about what happened and resolve it in a healthy way later.
Anger Management Therapy – Can Counseling Help You Deal with Anger?
If you’ve tried all these anger management techniques and nothing seems to work, it may be time to seek professional help. Therapy is a good way to explore the reasons why you get so angry and identify your triggers.
Also, therapy provides a safe space to express yourself and try new techniques for expressing anger without judgment and under guidance of a professional. Just make sure you find a therapist who suits your needs well.
Therapists on Calmerry can help you learn how to deal with anger in a relationship, workplace, and other areas of your life. So you may try to improve your life and feel better just today.