Anger and managing the emotion
Anger is a universal emotion and natural. It is related to the fight or flight response that gets triggered when you perceive a situation as a threat, minor or major. We all get angry for similar reasons; however, triggers and response vary from person to person.
Anger can be triggered due to a situation that is unpleasant, unfair, blocked your goals, or when faced with something you try to avoid or that make you feel powerless. And many a time, anger is accompanied by a host of other feelings. We get angry not just at people, but also at things – the bumpy road, missing car keys, etc or we generalise – things like this always happens to me. What determines how you respond when you get angry depends on the state you are in –hungry, fatigued, haven’t slept, or been under stress lately and what matters the most is how you interpret the event, at that moment.
If you interpret it as a threat, for example, you have to catch a flight, and someone in front of you is driving slowly – you imagine, this is it. I won’t make it! Your response may be hurtling all the curses you know at this monster who won’t let you through, while you have no idea why he is driving slowly. Perceiving someone as a monster might be a bit irrational, however, anger is not always irrational. We also get angry, due to reasons like self-protection and when treated unfairly.
Through anger, your brain alerts (read about Amygdala in the brain responsible for this activity) you to injustice and helps you prepare to confront that injustice. When you get angry, there are physiological changes like increased heart rate, turning red and your digestive system slows down to route the energy to your response. This is because you are wired to protect yourself. Anger can be a great motivator when you need to protect yourself from abuse, racism, sexism, safeguarding your children, and more. Cursing or hitting does not help.
Regulating your emotion
When compared to any other species or our ancestors, evolution has given us an added advantage of being able to regulate all our emotions, including anger. We have the ability to not attack someone or be aggressive, instead, channel that anger into something more productive. An aggressive response might only worsen the situation and result in people getting hurt, and most often than not, you pay the price. Over a period, it affects your relationships as well as your overall well-being.
If you or your peers have felt your anger response is aggressive or if the severity of the response and/or frequency of your anger interferes with your mental health, relationships, performance at work, etc. then you need to work on your anger.
Start by self-observation
Self-monitoring and understanding your trigger-response helps you understand yourself better. So, next time you get angry:
- Identify your triggers,
- Recall your state before the situation occurred – were you stressed working on a deadline, hungry, have you been sleeping well, were you already angry?
- Did you feel anything else? – fear, disgust, disheartened
- What were the physiological responses? – palpitation, perspire, short breaths
- Were there any thoughts? – I can’t do this anymore, not again, how dare you?
- How did you respond? – cursed, yelled, got physically violent
- How did you feel after? – happy, guilty, sad
- Reflect – Did your response give you a constructive output?
Do this as many times as it takes until you become more aware of yourself and you have conquered the ability to respond with a goal that may help you and the situation in finding a solution.
Managing anger
Remember anger is not bad, but an essential emotion. And we can all learn skills that can help us regulate our anger, and make it our ally. Once you know what your common triggers are, practising these steps can help in the same:
Breath: bring your attention to the present by taking a deep breath. Taking a deep breath, send signals to your body that soothes the threat response and calms you. At which moment you can choose to clear your mind and be present. And continue to take deep breaths.
Set a catchphrase: at that moment no matter the situation tell yourself – I am angry, yet, I want to be kind; this is anger and my response should be expressed with discernment; I do not want to be aggressive, and so on.
Take a break: if you have an option to revisit the situation, take a break, walk or drink water and collect yourself and get curious and ask why you are angry.
Approach with kindness: first, be kind to yourself, then be it a family member, colleague, or a stranger, approach them with kindness.
Challenge yourself to do it differently: Try to respond with a goal to make your point without aggression at all.
You may not succeed each time, or there will be times when you’ll still lose it. However, practice will help slowly reduce aggression and help in channelling the energy anger creates more productively. It is always best to seek help from a professional if your anger is consuming you or you are creating an abusive environment for yourself or others.