What is anger?
Anger is an intense emotion you feel when something has gone wrong or someone has wronged you. It is typically characterised by feelings of stress, frustration, and irritation. Everyone feels anger from time to time. It’s a perfectly normal response to frustrating or difficult situations. Anger doesn’t look the same in everyone as we all express it differently. For some people, screaming might be an outlet for their anger while others might express it by physically hitting an object or even another person.
Causes
Anger can be caused by either external or internal influences. A person or an event could make you angry. You could be angry because someone cut in line in front of you in line. You might feel angry when you are emotionally hurt, threatened, in pain, or in a confrontation. Sometimes we use anger to replace other emotions we would rather not deal with, like emotional pain, fear, loneliness, or loss. In these cases, anger becomes a secondary emotion. Anger could be a reaction to physical pain, a response to feelings of fear, to protect yourself from a perceived attack, or in response to a frustrating situation.
Types of Anger
There are three main types of anger.
- Passive-Aggressive Anger: Here, a person tries to repress their anger to avoid dealing with it but typically ends up expressing it in unhealthy and undermining ways.
- Assertive Anger: This can be a healthy option for expressing anger. It involves handling anger in a controlled manner by using your words to calmly explain and try to diffuse the situation. Here, anger is expressed in a non-threatening way.
- Openly Aggressive Anger: This type of anger might be accompanied by physical or verbal aggression such as screaming or hitting things. The aim of this type of anger is typically to hurt the person the anger is directed at emotionally or physically.
Anger can also be expressed in either one of two ways: verbally or nonverbally.
- Verbally: When a person expresses their anger verbally, you are likely to see them raise their voices. They might become insulting and say hurtful things if their anger is directed at another person.
- Nonverbally: You’ll notice some slight physical changes in a person who expresses their anger nonverbally. They might frown or scowl and clench their jaws and fist. They might also lash out at another person or object, sometimes causing physical damage to the person or object and in some cases even hurting themselves. The two ways people express their anger are not mutually exclusive and it’s possible to see a person expressing anger in both ways.
Treatment through Therapy
For most people, it’s easy to identify the triggers and emotions behind their anger. But some people experience anger suddenly and intensely without being able to curb it or identify the triggers behind it. The most common way to treat excessive anger is with therapy.
Finding ways to cope with anger is very important. When we allow anger to take control of our lives, it can affect everything we do. It can damage relationships with our loved ones and cause problems in our workplace. If you’ve been finding it difficult to keep your anger in check in certain situations, here are a couple of coping mechanisms that can help.
- Identify the Cause: The first step to coping with anger is identifying the root cause of your anger. It could be another emotion—maybe one of fear or loneliness. It could be an altercation you had or an unpleasant thought that came to mind.
- Meditate: Meditation is very beneficial in helping to control human emotions. You can start with simple meditation techniques like deep breathing exercises. When faced with a situation that makes you angry, take a second before reacting. You can take several deep breaths to calm yourself or try to count until you feel yourself become calmer.
- Work Out: Exercising isn’t just great for your physical health—it’s also beneficial for your mental health. It’s also a way to channel out emotions like anger in a useful and productive way. Going for a quick run or swim when you are angry could help defuse the emotion.
- Let It Out: Don’t bottle your anger up. Expressing your anger when you feel it is the healthiest way to get through it. Bottling up the emotion is most likely to cause a sudden and intense outburst when you least expect it.
- Avoid Triggers: If you are quick to become angry, it’s useful to try to identify and avoid your triggers. If you are often triggered when having a conversation with a particular person or about a particular topic, avoid them or that topic until you’ve learned how to have better control over your anger.