Buddha said:
“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”
- Are you angry often?
- Are you getting mad regularly?
- Do you lose your mind with rage?
- Do you fume in silence for long periods of time?
What is anger?
Anger is a part of the sympathetic nervous system which oversees our flight fight reactions. In a primal way we needed it to save ourselves from danger, to boost our energy levels, to help us fight or run. But in a suffocated way we now use it to gauge when our values have been violated, or to control our self-respecting boundaries. We also use it to vent our frustration or when we feel overwhelmed due to stressors in our environment. The reason why so many people have problems controlling it is because they allow their body to take control and immediately react to a perceived threat. So, anger is a safety mechanism from our caveman days which no longer serves us.
The Cave man way
Aggression most likely remains in man as a solid component of his biological heritage as a primate. Sigmund Freud states that the tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in the man which constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture and society. And therein lies the problem. We can no longer act out our innate instinctual aggressive caveman ways.
Irrational beliefs
We must learn through a variety of techniques and questioning our irrational beliefs to remain calm in all areas of our lives. When you become extremely angry you are no longer able to think clearly and process your thoughts logically. Your thoughts and feelings start at the brain stem enter the emotional brain and there you react. The thoughts and feeling do not even make it through the prefrontal cortex or logical brain. So there is no reasoning of the reactions.
Anger whilst driving
Let’s take for example whilst driving another driver cuts you off and you become immediately angry. It’s not the act of the other person which makes you angry. It’s the way your mind is processing the act. You are actually giving somebody else control over your thinking and emotions at this point. Road rage is normally the result of faulty thinking, believing that everybody else should drive like you. Then what may happen? You speed up to give this person a piece of your mind. Or flash your lights and get on the horn. You may resent the other driver’s action, get in front of them, then do to them what they did to you. Or worse case scenario pull up, dive out of your car and act violently towards the other driver. These all stem from you believing that someone has violated one of your values.
Contributing factors causing anger
Anger can be the end result of stress and frustrations which have build up over a long period of time. Losing your cool can be due to lack of sleep, shortening your wick, and patience. Children that see and hear parents arguing all the time learn that this is how relationships work. The consumption of alcohol reduces our ability to think clearly and logically. We may miss social cues that help us to interpret situations in a rational sense. Read more about Alcohol and Aggression When someone says something that belittles you or degrades you, your ego takes a hit and your could respond with anger. Read about Becoming Offended and The All Mighty Powerful Ego
The Mental Health Foundation
The Mental Health Foundation stated that long term and intense anger has been linked with mental health problems including depression, Understanding Depression & the Road to Recovery , anxiety Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and self-harm Suicide Prevention. Anger is also linked to poor physical health such as Coronary Heart Disease, stroke, cancer and increased bouts of cold and flu.
But you choose your anger.
Anger is a choice. Let’s say your child has been gigging or skipping school for 3 months, you find out about it and you are suddenly angry. It wasn’t the gigging which caused you to be angry because if it was, you would be angry 3 months ago. It’s the knowing of the act and the way your mind has processed that act which made you angry. If you didn’t know about it then you could not be angry, right?
An old Chinese proverb:
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape 100 days of sorrow”
The Cues of anger
Physical signs of anger include:
- clenching your jaws or grinding your teeth
- headache
- stomachache
- increased and rapid heart rate
- sweating in areas, especially your palms
- feeling hot in the neck/face
- shaking or trembling
- dizziness
Emotionally you may feel:
- like you want to get away from the situation
- irritated
- sad or depressed or crying
- guilty
- resentful
- anxious
- like striking out verbally or physically
You may also be aware of:
- rubbing your head
- pacing back and forth
- getting sarcastic
- losing your sense of humour
- acting in an abusive or abrasive manner
- craving a drink, a smoke or other substance that relax you
- raising your voice
- beginning to yell, scream, or cry
Anger is also damaging to relationships and society.
I’d like to mention a story from the book called “Fathers who dare, win” by Ian Grant.
There was once a very upset boy who was constantly angry. His father gave him a hammer, a bag of nails and took him over to the backyard wooden fence. The father said that every time the boy got angry, he was to hammer a nail into the fence. The first day the boy hammered 37 nails into the fence, then next day 20 and the next 10.
One day the boy went to his dad and said that he didn’t get angry that day. The father took him outside to the fence and said that each day he didn’t get angry he was to remove one nail. Gradually the boy pulled out all the nails from the fence even though there were a couple of angry days in between.
Finally after the boy had removed all the nails from the fence, he went back to his father telling him of his success. The proud father took his boy back to the fence and showed him all the scares from where the nails were. The father profoundly said: “Each time we react with anger we leave scares like these nails did, that may never ever heal.”
Control the thoughts and remove the self-defeating emotion of anger from your life forever.
How can I control an angry outburst
Here are a couple of quick techniques to stop you exploding.
- Read the cues of anger above and write down which ones are yours.
- When you notice your cues of anger arising, then say to yourself or even better out loud STOP. This will bring awareness to your anger.
- Distance yourself from a situation or a person if you can. Say to this person: “I’m starting to get agitated about what’s going on. How about we take a break for 30 minutes and reconvene when I’ve had time to calmly think this through.”
- Breathe in the nose for five seconds. Then exhale out the nose for five seconds. Do this 10 times. This will give you time for your logical brain to catch up.
- Various forms of meditation can also be effective. See below.
- Communication skills may also be of benefit. See below.
Read The Power of Meditation Read Better Communication Read Breath and Ice Therapy
You may also like to listen to a podcast where I talk about anger and other topics:
https://candour-communication-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/adrian-spear
Take action now
You and I will investigate the reasons behind the anger, the triggers, look at your thought processes and your irrational belief system which in turn influences your body and mind. Thereafter we will design solution based techniques to manage the anger and produce a calmer emotionally stable future for you. Anger management is my forte. Find out more 4 session programmes or individual sessions. https://apspear.com.au/services/anger-management/
You can also give me a call for a free 15 minute chat to see if my service is right for you 0405 391 110 or fill out the contact form: https://apspear.com.au/contact/
