Anger Management and the Affects of Anger

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Have you ever been so angry that you feel tired, drained or even nauseated? Perhaps after you’ve cooled down and your anger subsides, you feel depressed or ready for a good cry. Maybe your anger is the motivating force needed to move into action and stand up for yourself when otherwise you wouldn’t. Needless to say, anger is a very power emotion and also a healthy, normal emotion. It is how you use it, or allow it to control you when it can become detrimental and even harmful to your health.

Anger is a secondary emotion. It always follows a predictable pattern:

1) A thought process precedes the feeling, and

2) The primary motivators of either fear or gain (greed) trigger the feeling of anger.

Think It Out

For starters, you can’t get angry unless you first tell yourself to be angry. All feelings are thought into existence. Just like you can not make yourself happy unless you think happy, you can not make yourself angry without first thinking annoying thoughts.

Once you realize that your thoughts become feelings, you need to identify the second part of the thought/feeling process. Only you can create your own thoughts! Knowing this, you are responsible for what you feel. No one can make you angry. You choose all of the thoughts and memories which perpetuate feelings of anger.

Have you ever wondered why some people are angry most of the time? This “angry” type of thinking has become imprinted into a neural pathway for creating this cognitive script. They’ve thought angry thoughts for so long that it has become ingrained as their habitual, unchallenged nature. They are conditioned to thoughts which produce angry feelings. As a result they are more susceptible to anger than they are any other emotion.

An easy formula for remembering the anatomy of thoughts/feelings leading to behavior is:

I think ----> I feel ----> I act ----> I become

Obviously if you feel angry you are most likely to act angry. And what happens when you feel and act angry most of the time? You got it! You are more than likely to become an angry person.

Anger Becomes Me

What does anger do for your mental and physical health? Remember how you feel when you get really angry: tired, sad, depressed, nauseated and burnt out? Anger management problems will eventually manifest these symptoms more frequently and more intensely. This often creates mental and physical havoc.

Symptoms of anger include:

·       Restlessness
·       Increased heart rate and blood pressure
·       Violent outbursts
·       Irritability and annoyance
·       Yelling and disgruntled communication
·       Poor physical and mental health

Negative thoughts producing prolonged negative feelings eventually create “disease.” What does disease mean? It means the mind and body are unbalanced, off kilter and not at ease, hence dis-ease!

Where Does Fear Come From?

Remember it is “fear” or “gain (greed)” which triggers the thoughts that lead to anger. The fearful thoughts can include the likes of; shame, embarrassment, hurt, rage, perceived threat, or personal injury. In greed, anger can be manifested in perceived entitlement, envy, jealousy or aggression needed to achieve a task. When you examine these lists, many of them are created with faulty thinking and distortions in rationalizations.

In essence, faulty/irrational thinking leads to negative thoughts which eventually lead to angry thoughts. Over a period of time, anger management problems begin!

How Can Anger Harm Me?

Prolonged anger management problems cause tremendous emotional disturbances in individuals. Intermittent explosive anger is the most obvious mental health problem associated with anger management difficulties. Other mental health problems associated with anger management problems include; stress, anxiety, depression and even substance abuse.

Interestingly, for some individuals, depression becomes manifested as a by-product of anger turned inward. Individuals who are extremely passive or oppressed are more likely to become extremely angry. However they direct their anger internally which leads to depression and alcohol and drug abuse. It’s a quick band-aid for the painful symptoms. 

The origin for many physical ailments is often rooted in anger. Individuals who are angry most of the time are more likely to possess high blood pressure as well as cardiovascular problems. When you get angry, you cause your blood pressure to rise. Furthermore, when you get angry, adrenaline rushes through your body. When you are angry often, you are constantly causing blood pressure, heart rate and hormones to be in constant rollercoaster-like fluctuations. Your body pays a toll. Over the long haul, this becomes very damaging!

Besides heart disease, individuals are also at greater risk for cancer. When you are angry, you are in a state of alarm--fight or flight response. This causes immune cells to release, reducing the potential threat on the body. When you are in a constant fight or flight state, the immune cells are being wasted on anger and not available to fight other potential health ailments, disease or viruses attacking the body system. Also, being angry and negative actually produces more acids in the body which are conducive to cancer.

People who are angry most of the time report being constantly fatigued and run down. In this state, one is more susceptible to colds and flu. Once again, the immune system becomes taxed to the point that it can’t function as it is intended.

What Can I do?

The best approach one can take for their anger problems is an anger management course/program. There are anger management support groups available in most communities. The best anger management programs incorporate a cognitive behavioral approach for modifying negative and detrimental thought patterns and behaviors. A good program should encourage individuals to recognize their “triggers” as well as assuming responsibility for what they are thinking and feeling.

Effective anger management strategies work best with the premise of “one thought at a time”. The individual is encouraged to become a mastermind—the master of their mind. This is when they learn to monitor and censor their angry thoughts and change them with positive or neutral thoughts.

Other Common tools for Anger Management are:

·       Athletic and sports
·       Music: both listening and playing
·       Writing
·       Mediation and Zen
·       Hypnotherapy
·       Pets

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