The Acid of Anger Burns our Minds

When it comes to experiencing emotions, we all love to stay and feel positive. It is because positivity gives us special energy to deal with the challenges or obstacles we may face in our day-to-day lives.

But sometimes, we tend to lose this special energy when something unexpectedly sneaks into our minds leading us to feel negative and angry.

To feel angry is alright, healthy, and a normal human emotion. As a natural emotion with an instinctive response to threats, anger is necessary when dealing with certain situations or people.

However, anger can become problematic and destructive if you struggle to control it wisely. A recent study in the United States discovered that individuals do not seek a particularly valid reason to be angry upon. This greatly affects their physical and emotional health and unpredictably causes problems in all the relationships they hold, at their workplace, and in the overall quality of their life. Succinctly, anger like a wind blows out the lamp of one’s mind.

The madness underlying anger

Multiple reasons exist which can trigger anger, including family or relationship problems, financial issues, anxiety, or even stress. Though considered to be caused by some underlying disorder, over the years, research revealed that beyond a disorder, anger is a symptom of various mental health conditions. These include mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcoholism, behavioural disorders, depression, neurodevelopmental disorders, grief, etc.

Additionally, many emotional symptoms get in the way of anger noticeably. Commonly exhibited symptoms pre or post-anger episodes are guilt, rage, frustration, stress, irritation, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, etc.

Furthermore, even when an individuals’ anger manifests itself in several ways, the emotion of anger is not expressed in the same but in the following different manners:

• Inward: This type of anger that is within you or directed at yourself involves denial to do things that make you happy, avoid fulfilling basic needs of eating and/or drinking, or engaging in negative self-talk. In rare cases, people end up isolating themselves from others or harm themselves.
  

• Outward: To express their anger to others in ways that it is obvious, individuals engage in behaviours that include cursing, screaming, shouting, breaking or throwing things, physical or verbal abuse, or slap or beat others.
  

• Passive: Expressed in indirect and subtle ways, this type of anger involves the behaviours of sulking, observing silent treatment, making snide comments, or being rudely sarcastic.

Irrespective of how one expresses their anger, in certain situations, the behaviours they exhibit can be unhealthy, dangerous, and uncontrolled leading them to regret it in the future.

Tips to battle anger

Considering the mental well-being of oneself and others, it is very important to keep certain tips in mind to healthily deal with anger:

• Take calm breaths: The moment you feel angry, your breathing frequency speeds up. Reverse the trend of anger by taking deep breaths at a slow pace for several moments.
  

• Set yourself a timer: When experiencing extreme anger, things you do or say can go off control resulting in a “sorry” state of mind. So, make sure to give yourself a time frame to be calm and concise before you respond.
  

• Practice Timeout: Pause your interactions with others and play the quiet break you give yourself to process events. Also, refresh your mind and get the emotions back to level one.
  

• Be Empathetic: When trying to place yourself in other’s shoes and relive the situation from their perspective, a bud of new understanding grows in you, calming the anger.

• Discover quick solutions: If one solution to calm yourself down when you get heated is not effective, find alternative solutions to gradually feel better. For example, read books or watch videos that talk about different practical, workable solutions or reach out to someone who has had similar experiences as yours.
  

• Show gratitude: Take some moment to introspect the right and the wrong when you are confused about acting. Keeping away negativity and introspecting how life has been good can help you be positive and neutralize the anger.
  

• Talk to someone close: Before you build anger in yourself or stew in the situations that make you angry, you need to help yourself by sharing what happened to someone supportive and trustable. This can benefit you to open your eyes to a new perspective.
  

• Express anger with maturity: If anger lives within you for quite some time, it is important and OK to express how you feel. Keeping the future in mind, make sure you handle it rightly and with maturity thus, easing your anger and stress.

• Picture positivity: Diffuse anger by constructing a picture of positivity in you, such as focusing on good things, keep laughing, or practising mindful yoga exercises.
  

• Play some soothing tunes: Slow and cheerful music is definitely the best medicine that carries you away to a world that soothes the heat and pain of the anger in you.
  

• Escape mentally healthily: By visualizing themselves in a relaxing or imaginary scene, individuals engage in the practice of mental escape that calms and makes them forget the reasons for being angry. Or they may also consider some creative channel of painting, writing poems or songs, gardening, and so on, which will reduce their anger.

Let us know what you think of this in the comments below.