Anger Management

Anger from Psychosocial and Psychology perspectives and how to manage it?

Anger is a complex reaction of feelings and thoughts. Behavior cannot be created from

nothingness. Anger is a human natural feeling, and it is an emotion mixed with worry, fear, happiness and sadness. It is not labeled as negative or positive, good or bad; however, what defines the aspects of anger is the way of dealing with anger which is a secondary emotion preceded by other emotions such as fear, sadness and depression. These emotions; moreover, awaken and create anger controlling its severity and its duration of appearance. Anger is an energy produced by body and has to be released to achieve balance and return to its natural status. Otherwise, this can lead to a physical and mental disruption.

Anger emerges as a reaction for physical threat that hinders to achieve human desires and expectations in all life affairs, for anger can never be medically neglected or excluded. The function of anger is to protect our bodies and expectations from any threat as it is a natural defensive means that has to continue living and to stimulate the impulses required for that. It is worth mentioning that there is a significant balance between the duration of this emotion and the severity of fear, depression, sadness and worry caused by threat. According to that, it is necessary to know the nature and powerfulness of some emotions such as fear, depression and worry caused by threat in order to predict the severity and duration of anger.

Anger has three components

1. emotional status: resulted from evoking the person making him feel depressed, worried and afraid of the situation or the evoking person himself. 
2. express emotion: by yelling, shouting or weeping using sharp words or trying to solve the problem calmly or using power and violence against the evoker. On the other hand, there are many people who leave their backs and repress their emotions inside. 
3. extent of knowledge and experience about anger: how to evaluate the situation causing anger and to know the expected results of the situation as well as the suitable reaction; whether the reaction will solve the problem or add an extra problem.

Anger has three types. 

1. Hasty and sudden anger resulted from sudden irritation.
2. Reaction for some behavior or a situation committed by others, and can be perceived as deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others.
3. Dispositional ( related to character traits) For example, there are some people who are naturally irritated hastily and uptight interpreting others’ behaviors in a negative way or exaggerating the situation and being hasty having no ability to soundly assess the negative effects on their behaviors. Besides, those people may suffer from worry and fear that affect their emotional response, or they may be controller on their feelings being able to interpret the nature of the threat and the harm caused as well as assessing consequent results of the behavior of others. This difference in character traits explains why two persons differ in their emotional responses towards the same threat; one of them is calm tending to search for reasonable solutions and defend his/her interests without harming himself/herself or others, while the other one is hasty and impetuous using violence to end the crisis.

When subjected to any evoking reason for anger, a series of physiological and psychological changes turn to  specific behavior to defend himself/herself in order to take the danger of the threat away. He/she begins to realize the danger caused by anger, so the body produces  required energy to combat threat and then external expressions in body appear such as facial expressions and body language. Then, suitable behavior to prevent danger emerges; it is instinctive and aggressive by nature unless it is controlled in some way.

Humans use two ways to express anger which are disclosing about anger or repressing anger. These ways have significant and important consequences for physical and psychological health as well as social consequences.

1.  Disclosing anger is a necessary natural way to release extra energy produced by the body for self-defense. Deliberate aggressive behavior is a natural instinctive way to disclose anger leading the person to fight back and defend himself/herself when being in danger. Despite the importance of this type of behavior for our life sustainability, human cannot always behave in an aggressive way due to social rules and laws set to restrict his/her behavior and prevent him/her from causing harm for himself/herself or others. Therefore, it is very necessary to disclose anger in a controlling and constructive way that guarantees his/her physical and psychological health. To disclose anger in a non-aggressive and non-violent behavior is the best way to express anger feelings and turn the body to its natural balance causing no consequent effects on psychological and physical health. Managing anger by this constructive way requires the person how to explain his/her desires and needs, to perceive the nature of his/her expectations and how to achieve them without causing harms for others.
2. Repressing anger: when repressing anger, energy generated during the emotion inside human body is controlled, and body has no exit to release this energy leading to destructive expressions whether physical or psychological. The emotion which has no way to be released externally will be repressed inside human body. Thus, body will always be in a physiological alert causing healthy problems such as blood pressure, heart diseases and strokes increasing feelings of inability, sadness and depression. Repressed anger may lead to cause a negative aggressive behavior such as revenge in an indirect way and hatred against others as well as resentment. Anger can be released in other situations or with other persons as exploding with anger towards his/her family or friends who are not connected to the situation that evokes anger; therefore, he/she begins to complain without making others notice him/her, to avoid having an eye contact with others and to backbite and gossip.

      How to manage Anger?

      Humans should know the nature of anger and to reassess beliefs which prevent from disclosing anger. He/she should look for suitable ways to explicitly express emotions. To alleviate fatal effects of depression, humans must stop thinking about the issue which causes anger; instead, must think about other things or constructive activities in order get rid of extra energy charges.

      The dilemma doesn’t lie in anger as a feeling, but it lies in how to express anger. Most people don’t develop strategies of managing anger in a well-physical, social and psychological way, so each one tries to find a way in interpreting feeling and expressing anger. Thus, uses a natural expression accompanied with anger and coarseness may repress anger; doing this may turn the person into hasty and brutal who knows nothing but rudeness and violence to achieve desires, or may become humiliated suffering from different kinds of psychological and physical diseases

Below are some ways attempted in managing and controlling anger:

1. Do not ever repress your anger; instead, you should always disclose and express it in a constructive way along with learning the strategies of expressing anger. Repressing anger is a very bad thing causing physical diseases such as heart diseases, blood pressure, stokes, psychological pressure, depression and worry in all its forms. On the other hand, you can engage yourself with other things such as housework or any activity that can absorb your anger.
2. Take a deep breath when being angry and hold it for few seconds then release it. Repeat it several times. When being angry, adrenaline level increases as well as heart beats and blood pressure, so when deeply breathing turns heart beats to its normal status and blood pressure decreases. Then, body sends the brain signals for preventing adrenaline to be absorbed, so breathing gives you comfort and relaxation.
3. Avoid any person or situation evoking your anger in order to grant yourself a chance to control your stress. When avoiding, just take a deep breath, wash your face if possible, move your body, and then return to the person or situation again to deal with it.
4. Try to reasonably assess if the situation is real or influential, to realize the kind and the extent of the harms are, suitable reactions to confront harms, and your reaction consequences. Try not to exaggerate in assessing the severity of the situation or reaction.
5. Do some activities such as walking, running, swimming, drawing, rubbing your palms and face, reading something or doing any activity that fits with the situation. Doing any movement activity helps you release anger and balances your body.
6. Do some relaxation exercises permanently, not only during anger duration. If you persevere on these exercises, you will be more able to control your anger in a healthy way. It is worth mentioning that breathing exercises are extremely useful, so try to contemplate positive things such as contemplating nature, the world, creation, religious affairs, worship, life and etc. Besides, bathing is very helpful for relaxation. 
7. Pay attention to the situations and things evoking your anger frequently, and try to manage yourself to know how to deal with expected situations whether by avoiding any evoking situation or by preparing the means that help you deal with anger.

Try not to throw the reason of your anger on others, and you should know that you can’t set aside the reasons of anger in your milieu. You should manage and control your anger in a good way that can’t harm others. Anger is an inside feeling, unless you control it in a sound way, it will have destructive effects on you, only.

learn the skills of solving problems to employ them in crises. Try to solve your problems by discussion, and give enough time to solve any problem. Moreover, you should divide the problem into its elements to facilitate you looking into it,  develop your skills in social interaction to make you more aware about others’ expectations and to help you solve the problems resulted from the differences between your expectations and others’ expectations.
Be decisive in ending the reason of anger, for if you leave neglect it, it will lead prolong the duration of your anger. Thus, you will be subjected to many dangerous social, physical and psychological problems as well as being regularly angry. Therefore, you should use quiet discussion without causing any harm for yourself or for others.

If you are always angry and easy-evoked, speak about your anger with the one you trust or with a psychosocial specialist; explain how you feel when being angry and what to do. Moreover, you should know that speaking about anger is considered a psychosocial treatment which helps you understand yourself in a better way; it is an exit to express what you want freely.

Hamed Psychosocial Clinic will help managing anger and keep yourself calmed and relaxed. 

Get Free 10 minutes Counselling today by calling  226-678-9007