Anger is one of the most challenging emotions; it’s something most of us have all the time, as a natural reaction to events in our lives. For some people however, anger can become much too common as a waking state – one that distracts us from our focus, hurts our relationships, and even harms our physical health.
For many people, dealing with anger is something that takes skill. Without strategies and prepared steps, there’s nothing to do with feelings of anger and hatred except letting them grow and fester inside you, causing an infinite amount of pain throughout your life.
In this article, we’ll explore a few strategies anyone can use to deal with the anger in their lives – both the kind that stems as an immediate reaction to daily events; and the lingering kind that goes back months, years, or even decades.
Reasons for Anger
Humans experience the emotion of anger for many reasons; most typically when we feel insulted, hurt, abused, robbed, or otherwise disrespected. This could also be a reaction to the way someone you love is treated in this fashion. I doesn’t matter if this is someone coming at you directly with an insult, a joke made at your expense, an assault or robbery, or even simple unfair treatment; all of these are logical events that provoke anger in ourselves.
In the most basic sense, anger is natural; it’s what doctors call a “defense mechanism”, or a way for your subconscious to defend itself when it’s being attacked. In nature, if another animal came toward you and your family, trying to hurt you or steal your food – your anger would actually help you fight better and stronger against them. Some argue this is why it exists.
The problem is, we are far from our “state of nature”, and the angry feelings that accompany what our minds associate with those traumatic and basic attack events, don’t tend to help much of anything at all. Let’s explore some of those effects.
The Effects of Anger: Why Make a Change?
Anger has so many negative effects associated with it. Here are a few:
1. Anger clouds your mind and focus: Even if the anger you’re feeling is “warranted”, the deeper you get into your anger, the further you are from resolving the problem that caused it. This is to say nothing of the other events in your life that have completely left your radar when you fall into deep states of anger. It’s variably impossible to never feel anger, but this is a good reason to shorten your reactionary period of anger as much as possible.
2. Anger hurts you relationships: when you’re angry, nobody wants to be around you. Furthermore, the association with your identity become negative, to that of someone who is short, mean and unpleasant to be around – even if you don’t mean to be that way to a third party. Also, when you’re very angry, you tend to say and do things you regret later. When you do these things to people, it spreads the negativity, creating a deep and lasting anger in them. This can affect your relationships forever.
3. Anger is very bad for your health: medical studies have proven that high stress levels associated with anger, rage and hatred increase blood pressure and decrease the immune system. People who experience ongoing increased amounts of anger and rage will often have an overall lifespan of years or even decades below those who’ve found ways to cope, and limit their angry feelings. Concentrated Anger is horrible for your health, and that’s a fact.
Strategies for Coping with Anger
The point of all this is that when you feel angry, no one knows – and in many cases no one cares. People who love you care about you, and want you to feel better, but the people you’re angry at definitely don’t care. So all the time you’re walking around feeling angry, concentrating on how much you hate someone; you’re only torturing yourself, while they go about their business unscathed. In finding constructive ways to deal with anger, you can limit, or even eliminate these crippling feelings that hurt you and the people who surround you so much.
* Immediate Anger – Reacting to Daily Events
The most common type of anger that we all feel happens when something comes along in our day, usually unexpected, and induces a state of anger. Say someone cuts you off in traffic, calls you a name at a party in front of friends, or even mugs you on the street. There’s a lot at stake in the hour, or 24 hours following that event that will greatly affect your state of being.
Usually following the initial shock or fear, anger is the first emotion to set in after an unexpected event like this. After the dust settles on the battlefield, you start to think about what you “should have said” or “would have done”, and how that would “set things straight.” You might even start to create fantasies in your head about “telling someone off”.
In a worst case scenario, you’ll spend the rest of the day, week, or month explaining these twisted fantasies to innocent friends and family, who are forced to experience the worst side of you they’ve ever seen.
For these reasons, you have to react in a prepared and calculated manner to the unforeseen events that cause extreme, reactionary anger. As traumatic event happens to you, as soon as you start to feel anger building inside you – think about it as someone tapping you on the shoulder, and asking if you’d like a nice serving of physical pain, loss of focus and loss of respect. Actually see the further events as the instant result of agreeing to participate. If you can see yourself as both the person now, and the person later who regrets the anger – you can deny the third person: the person offering the anger. He/she is the drug dealer, eager to get you to take a healthy dose of what sounds like a good idea, and never is. Practice seeing the big picture quickly, and when the time comes; you’ll see that choosing to pass on anger is as easy as passing on harmful addictive drugs.
* Lasting Anger – Healing Old Wounds
The second major type of anger is equally hurtful. Lasting anger is the result of replaying or retelling yourself a story of something that happened a long time ago. This could be something involving a family member, childhood schoolmate, or even stranger. Anything that traumatized you years ago, but still weighs on you every time you’re reminded of it is an example of lasting anger.
Whether the person who made you angry has apologized, and seeks forgiveness – or not; that doesn’t change the fact that
you don’t want to live in a state of weighing, depressing hatred. It doesn’t mean you’re condoning what happened if you decide not to hate – it just means you aren’t participating. You may feel that if someone treats you a certain way, the only appropriate reaction is anger – at the time, and forever after. However, what you must see is that nothing anyone else ever does must define you now. Even if someone were to do the worst crime to you or your loved one – something filled with anger and hatred – you can experience appropriate sadness and grief, but still say “anger and hatred may be you, but it’s not me.”
You see, when you participate in the circle of anger that’s created by other people, it’s like catching a terminal illness. The immunization shot is as simple as letting go. Unlike reactionary anger that is short-lived enough where we can only regret the time we’ve spent there – lasting anger is often still going on; to this very moment. So, the time has come where you can lift your own weight off your back, and feel sadness – and wish the world’s forgiveness for those who’ve hurt you; forgive yourself, and begin to move on.
Review
A certain amount of anger is healthy, but too much will destroy the best parts about your life. Remember; every emotion you feel is a choice inside your head, and you’re steering the ship! The key to consciously making the decisions you want to make is practicing them when you’re not in the heat of the moment. Then, when you get there – you are your own best resource. Take the wheel my friend; it’s time to drive in another direction.
Author: Tyler Watkins is a health enthusiast and postcard collector. He writes across a wide variety of website genres.
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