How to Express Anger in a Healthy Way

By Lisa B. Marshall

Do you struggle with understanding or managing anger? Do you wonder how to communicate when you’re feeling angry?

A listener recently asked me to address implosive anger, also called repressed anger. There’s a funny movie that addresses this subject. It’s called Anger Management, with Jack Nicholson as a psychiatrist trying to help Adam Sandler's character realize he has a problem. He says to Adam,

“There are two kinds of angry people: explosive and implosive. Explosive is the kind of individual that you see screaming at the cashier for not taking their coupons. Implosive is the cashier, who remains quiet day after day, and finally shoots everyone in the store. You’re the cashier.”  (Hearing Jack Nicholson say those words is both funny and scary at the same time!)

Signs of Implosive Anger

Sometimes people who appear mild-mannered really are as calm as they seem and don’t get upset easily. But some people are actually getting upset, they just aren’t letting it show. The first sign of implosive anger is denial. 

Going back to the movie, after the doctor tells Adam he’s the cashier, Adam replies, “No, no, no. I’m the guy hiding in the frozen food section dialing 911. I swear.” Denial. These are the people who say, “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.” Or “I’m not angry, I’m just upset.” They can’t admit to themselves they’re feeling anger.

However, though they won’t admit something made them angry, they will withdraw from the person or situation, and then brood about the incident. “How rude he was! I can’t believe he said that to me. And in front of everyone! He humiliated me.” The angry person replays the event over and over. Maybe you’ve felt that way from time to time—I know I have. But when people have an anger problem, withdrawing and brooding go to an extreme.

Effects of Anger

According to an article in Psychology Today, anger is triggered by some sense of having been disempowered. Thus the purpose of anger is to eliminate a feeling of powerlessness. So anger wants to attack. Expressed anger attacks the other person in some way. But who does suppressed anger attack? It attacks you.

It’s well-known that negative stress causes a variety of illnesses. In fact, a study by UC Berkeley recently found that repressing anger leads to back pain and stiff muscles.

So, let it out, right? Well, maybe not. According to the same study, venting causes heart disease. What about a physical vent? Maybe punch something to get it out, or take a jog? Apparently, that doesn’t help, either. A study entitled Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? indicated that because exercise keeps the heart rate and blood pressure elevated and doesn’t distract the angry person from thinking about it, the person’s anger remains high, and perhaps even higher.

So, what’s an angry person to do, then?

Managing Your Anger in a Healthy Way

Emotions help us manage our experiences. And since we sometimes have negative experiences, negative emotions serve a purpose in our lives and should not be denied or suppressed. But they need to be managed and communicated in a healthy way.

The first approach is to calm down. My advice about how to calm down before speaking in public is very useful here. In my episode, 5 Ways to Speak Up without Freaking Out, my guest and I discuss recognizing your feelings as normal, then learning to calm them through visualization and deep breathing.

The next method is to change the way you look at the situation. It’s often helpful to consider the other person’s perspective, or try to think of it as if you were a “fly on the wall”. How would a casual observer evaluate the situation? What if both sides gave their perspectives? My episode How to Handle Rude Questions discusses this a bit. Additionally, doing things incompatible with anger can make a huge difference. How can you be angry while watching a comedy or playing with kittens?

Communicating Effectively

If you’ve calmed down enough to look at the situation somewhat objectively, and you find you have a legitimate reason to be angry, it’s important to communicate it in a way that will improve and resolve the situation and your feelings, not perpetuate them.

I have discussed many times on this show the value of diplomatic speaking. In a nutshell, you need to think about what you will say, choose words carefully, and listen with an open mind. The following podcasts go into this in detail.

How to Have a Difficult Conversation

How to Handle Criticism

6 Constructive Ways to Give Negative Feedback

How to be More Diplomatic

You should also consider other people’s communication styles. You might be a quiet type, but someone else might be more dynamic or to-the-point. Neither communication style is bad, but the difference almost guarantees misunderstandings. Some of my best podcasts on this subject are:

How to Deal with People More Effectively

How to Deal with Difficult People

Communicate Better with Different Types of People

Does Your Communication Style Hold You Back?

Finally, remember that sometimes life is hard. Sometimes you just have to Choose to Be Happy. If you or someone you love continues to have issues with anger or sadness, please talk to a professional. But usually, putting into practice the suggestions in this podcast will help you balance anger so that it’s a rare occurrence.

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13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

A Bad Temper Can Leave Scars

By Harleena Singh

Do you have a bad temper that you wish you didn’t have? Can you imagine the damage such a temper can do to you and others? It can leave lifelong scars that are often difficult to heal.

Bad temper is a persisting angry mood that any of us can have. It is merely a way to remove or displace your frustration, but only few think about what happens after that.

Nothing good really happens when you have a bad temper. Not only does the person at the receiving end suffer both mentally and physically, but you also make a dent in your persona.

A person with such an ill temper will affect others around him by making things unpleasant. It can cause stress, which leads to many health problems.

“We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.” ~ Alfred Adler

Let me take you through a story, which is an excerpt from what I read somewhere that inspired today’s post. It’s about a little boy who had a bad temper and what it resulted in. So, here we go.

What a Bad Temper Can Lead to

Once there was an extremely bright and talented boy. But sadly, he possessed a badhabit; he had a very bad temper.

Whenever he was angry, he did and said things that often hurt people because he had little regard for those around him.

Though he would sometimes realize and accept his mistakes, but still he had very fewfriends to call his own.

This made him sad as he could not understand the reason why people stopped being his friend. He decided to seek his parents help

His parents also remained worried about his irritable nature and temper. Finally, one day the father had an idea.

He asked his son to try out a little exercise. He gave him a bag of nails and a hammer.

He told him that, “Whenever you lose your temper I want you to really let it out. Just take a nail and drive it into the old fence with the oak boards in the backyard. And hit the nail as hard as you can.”

It wasn’t easy for the son to drive the nails into the weathered oak boards in the old fence because they were tough as iron. More so, the hammer was pretty heavy.

However, by the end of the first day, the boy had driven 39 nails into the fence! Wasn’t he really one angry young man!

Gradually, within a few weeks, the number of nails on the fence dwindled down. Guess what? Yeah, keeping his bad temper in control was easier than driving nails into the fence!

Finally, the day came when there was no nail on the fence because the boy didn’t lose his temper. He felt proud of himself as he shared his achievements with his parents.

The boy’s father told him that, “as a sign of your success, you will now pull out one nail, and do that each day when you don’t lose your temper even once.”

It took a lot of efforts for the boy to control his temper, but one day he was able to report proudly to his father that all the nails were gone.

“Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.” ~ Baltasar Gracian

Lesson Learnt About Bad Temper

The father appreciated his son’s efforts as he walked along with him and took a look at the fence. But there’s a lesson that each one of us can learn from what the father told his son about bad temper.

The father said, “ You’ve done well, but I want you to notice the holes you have left in the fence. Whatever happens now, this fence will never remain the same.”

He carried on saying, “When we say or do hurtful things in a bad temper or anger, it produces the same kind of result. It leaves such holes and scars.”

“It doesn’t matter how many times you say you are sorry, or how many years pass, the scars remain. And a verbal wound is as bad as a physical one, often worse.”

“Similarly, people are more valuable than an old fence. They make us smile.  Some even become our friends and support us, share our joys and sorrows.”

“And if these people trust us, then we need to treat them with love and respect. We need to prevent as many of those scars as we can. If we don’t then people will not like to be our 

friends.”

“Keep your temper. A decision made in anger is never sound.” ~ Ford Frick

Moral

Wasn’t that a beautiful story with a valuable lesson? Isn’t it a reminder most us need from time to time?

Everyone gets angry sometime or the other and some of us even have a bad temper, and that’s alright. But remember, once the scars are formed, they take a long time to heal.

Therefore, the real test is what we do with that temper and how we handle things.

Over to you –

Do you have a bad temper? If you do, how do you deal with your temper? Did you leave any scars behind? Share your comments below

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17:00:00 - By Vincent 0

5 Golden Tips On How To Deal With Anger

By Harleena Singh 

Anger is not bad, but it’s the way we deal with it that really matters. While we all know how to get angry, we should also know how to deal with anger to avoid troubles in life.

One of the earlier posts on this blog tells you about the reasons why you get angry, while there’s another one with an interesting story on what harm can anger do to you and your life.

Now, even after being aware of all these facts, most of you still get angry – don’t you?

Well, don’t worry, because as I stated earlier, getting angry is not that much of a problem if you know the right ways to deal with it.

It happens with everybody, including myself – that sometimes you just can’t help but get angry. And that’s okay, though it’s better if you can avoid doing so or get angry within limits.

However, something that you should certainly do is to help yourself on learning how to control your anger.

Anger is an emotion, and as with any other emotion, it’s alright to go through it in constructive ways.

Whenever you feel the anger, know that you can release or deal with it in various positive ways.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~ Gautama Buddha

Tips on How to Deal with Anger

There are many tips and techniques for controlling anger. Nevertheless, here are some of the ways that I use to control anger and find them quite effective.

Basically, you need to try and achieve these objectives whenever you get angry:

• Gain time so that you don’t react instantly
• Control the thoughts in your mind and changes in your body due to anger
• Release your anger in ways that are not harmful

Do you also use any of these anger management techniques? If not, then probably you can learn and practice them in your life.

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” ~ Thomas Paine

1. Remove Yourself

Pull yourself away from the person or situation that angers you.

If someone or something makes you angry – you need to try to remove yourself temporarily from that situation or go away from that person.

If not that, then try ways so that the other person goes away and you can have time to deal with your anger.

Yes, take a timeout because that will reduce the chances of you giving back an instant reaction, which is often uncontrolled, unreasonable, and hurtful.

It’s not running away – but being wise, because it’s unlikely that you’ll deal with the person or situation in the best manner when you’re angry.

You can even sleep and later talk about what angered you when you wake up with a refreshed mind.

Anger Management Tip: Take a walk in the garden or listen to soothing music to distract your attention. By doing this or picking up any hobby you like, you can shift the focus on other things to let the “anger triggering” situation pass by.

“When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

2. Breathe Fully

It’s not always possible for you to physically get away from the person or situation that angers you. In such a case, you can exercise controlled and deep breathing.

The trick is not to get involved in the anger trigger moment, and just breathe deep. It helps – try it out! 

Your breathing fastens with the rise in your blood pressure as you get angry, and one way of dealing with anger is to control your breathing.

Practice diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing to inhale and exhale air using the diaphragm and abdomen so that you breathe fully and slowly.

This helps you maintain your cool and your blood pressure, besides reducing stress and increasing stamina.

Another trick is to slowly count up to 10 and synchronize your breathing with it, and keep doing so until you feel that your breathing is normal or stabilized.

Anger Management Tip: Breathe consciously by paying attention on each aspect of breathing, right from the time you inhale to exhale. This practice is a part of mindful meditation, which helps to control your mind and not let it get involved in the commotion.

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” ~ Bible

3. Exercise Physically

When you’re angry, you’re full of negative energy. If you cannot control and eliminate this feeling with understanding, you need to release it in a healthy way that doesn’t harm others.

One of the easiest ways to deal with anger is to engage yourself in physical activities. These include sweating out activities like walking, skipping, jogging, running, swimming, playing some sport, and even gyming!

Exercising reduces your stress hormones and pumps the feel good Neuro-chemicals in your brain, which calms you down and elevates your mood.

Aerobic exercises and yoga can also help you lessen your anger and stress levels.

Anger is related to stress and anxiety, so you can use stress balls or a boxing bag to punch out your negative emotions if you feel that your anger is on the verge of eruption.

Anger Management Tip: If you can’t exercise, then try progressive muscle relaxation while sitting or standing by contracting and relaxing the muscles of the body from neck to toes. This helps reduce the stress in the body, and ultimately lessens your anger.

“When anger rises, think of the consequences.” ~ Confucius

4. Think Rationally

You should think of the consequences when you get angry. What would be the end-result of your act of anger? Is it really worth the damage it will cause?

You can’t always act on the spur of the moment.

You’ve to be responsible and think about how or what you say or do, as that will affect you or the other person. Things like health, relationships, business, career and family need to be considered.

Try to be logical and analyze the root cause of the problem that led to the anger instead of flowing away in the stream of negative emotions.

Accept your angry feelings and adapt, adjust, compromise, negotiate, and talk about the trigger situations and its causes.

Resolve the problem amicably and intelligently, and let your head overrule your heart while dealing with anger.

Anger Management Tip: Use “I” statements in place of “You”, which place the blame on the person at the receiving end. Be calm and express your anger in decent words. Use non-confrontational language to clarify the facts with an intention to solve the problem.

“Whenever anger comes up, take out a mirror and look at yourself. When you are angry, you are not very beautiful.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

5. Express Creatively

You can release your negative feeling through many creative ways.

You could deal with anger by writing or express your feelings – either on paper, or if you have a blog, even through blogging.

Maintaining a daily journal is a healthy way of keeping anger and stress at bay, and not letting them affect you.

You could even use dance and music as a form of catharsis. You can diffuse and make the situation lighter by using your sense of humor, but never use sarcasm as it can make matters worse.

Talk about your feelings of anger with your best friend or family member. Getting to know different perspective might help change your mind and mood.

If you feel like your anger is about to erupt, then take a newspaper and tear it into pieces, or if you’re alone – just scream and let off the steam! You’ll feel light and easy. 

Anger Management Tip: Practice visualization from wherever you are by closing your eyes and imagining yourself in a place where you feel happy and peaceful. Force a smile on your face and you’ll feel calm and relaxed.

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your cool to confront anger

Remember that nothing good comes out of anger, and it only makes things worse.

Always be assertive and look out for possible solutions instead of being aggressive and finding reasons for confrontation.

But if you’re angry, then don’t drink it down – don’t suppress it forcibly because there might be chances of it erupting later like a volcano.

The best way to eliminate and deal with anger is to apologize, forgive and let go, and engage yourself in positive self-talk.

Don’t hold any grudges, instead try to be understanding. You should try to emphasize by getting into the other person’s mind and understand their perspective to assess the reasons for the anger.

Once the tension in the environment has calmed down, then sit and talk out matters. Always think before you speak because words once spoken cannot be taken back.

But remember to not talk about your anger when you’re rushed, tired, or before your sleep time.

However, if you fail to control your anger using all the tricks in the bag, then you should see a mental health professional or a therapist for more guidelines.

Don’t suffer from anger. Instead, be smart and learn how to deal with it in the right way.

Here’s a short video that will show you how to control your anger in your daily life.

How to Control Your Anger ~ Howcast ~ YouTube Video

Did you notice that “Anger” is just one alphabet short of “Danger” (D-anger)? So, I hope now that you know how to control your anger, you’ll keep yourself out of danger. 

“He who angers you conquers you.” ~ Elizabeth Kenny

Over to You –

What do you do when you get angry? Is controlling anger easy for you? Share your tips on how to deal with anger in the comments.

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19:58:00 - By Vincent 0