Anger is a normal emotion that everyone feels at times, but sometimes it can be expressed in harmful ways.
It is important that you become aware of how your anger is affecting you and the people around you. When anger becomes harmful and/or persists over time, it can lead to problems in your relationships with others. Everyone gets angry at situations, other people and even themselves.
Anger becomes a problem when it causes disruptions in your everyday life and relationships. Your relations with people you love, friends and even people you work with can be affected, causing distress, tension and frustration. Difficulties in relationships due to anger may also cause you to experience anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, psychosomatic illness and problems with alcohol or drugs.
Although many people think that venting anger is beneficial, it is now believed that venting may escalate anger and aggression and not contribute towards a resolution of the situation. It is also not beneficial to store up your anger which may lead to a “pressure cooker” experience.
So …What can we do?
A first step is to identify the things or situations that regularly make you angry. It could be things that people do or even don’t do to you … And you might even identify that certain situations are more likely to make you angry. Is it when you’re stressed and anxious? Does clutter and messiness make it more likely?
Once you get a better picture of what’s going on and you get angry then you can make a plan to avoid or reduce those factors. Discussing these things with your family is a great help because everyone can identify with the situation and you can make a plan to help each other reduce stress.
Another excellent idea is to make a plan for what you might do when you feel yourself starting to get angry. You might be able to withdraw, do something physical like take deep breaths, close your eyes etc. Anger Management is about expressing some of your feelings of anger in a controlled way to allow you to begin to deal with the issues that are making you feel angry. Anger Management is also about making sense of your anger and understanding why you are angry. It is about learning better ways of expressing your anger and learning how to stop it from occurring in the first place.
Here is a list of ideas:
- deep breathing exercises
- exercise
- listen to music
- Withdraw (give yourself a timeout haha)
A trained psychologist can help you identify the triggers and early warning signs of your anger and help you learn skills and develop strategies to help you calm down and manage the situation before it gets out of control. They also have resources available to help you manage your anger and to help you manage problems that may be associated with your anger such as difficulties in your personal relationships.
Some of this post was adapted from some material found at mmcdonald.com.au
Margaret is a clinical Psychologist based in Brisbane’s northern suburbs and works with children, adolescents and adults.
