5 ways to understand and manage your anger

Anger is one of the basic emotions in our emotional spectrum..

As such, it fulfills a specific function, and the manifestation of this function can be defensive as well as constructive.

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How to relate to your anger in an appropriate way?

Next we will see 5 ways to link yourself from a healthier affective place with your anger.

1. Do not pathologize our anger

We must understand what we are talking about when we talk about anger. As we anticipated, it is an emotion; As such, it fulfills a very specific function, even at the bodily level: when we are angry, our heart rate speeds up, muscle tension increases, as well as blood pressure. At the neurological level, prefrontal cortex (largely responsible for cognition and complex behaviors, and attentional control) gives way to the amygdala (largely responsible for our emotional reactions). All this to prepare to instinctively attack or flee.

Therefore, getting angry is a natural emotional state, we should not make this state a mental health problem in itself. Here we must differentiate between getting angry per se, and the emotional reaction that we manifest in this state.

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2. Constructive facet or defensive facet

Suppose we are ready to enjoy a beautiful sunny afternoon, a Sunday morning, and a much-needed rest after an intense week of work. We sit in the garden or on the patio, grab a good book, and suddenly our neighbor puts on very loud music, to the point that we can't concentrate. This will probably make us very angry and irritated.

our anger can trigger various reactions. One of them may be to start making assumptions about our neighbor: he is inconsiderate! You lack empathy! He should go live somewhere else! Etc. etc. Immediately, this thought process leads us to want him to pay for interrupting our rest, so we go and very badly start throwing stones at his house.

This is an example of defensive anger management, where we give way to the assumptions that emotion generates about what is happening.

Another possible reaction would be to get up, go to his house (also driven by our anger) and comment on the situation, evaluate their response, and with this information draw a more accurate conclusion. Here the possibilities are endless, perhaps we will see that he very willingly apologizes and leaves us his phone to be more connected, we may realize that they are passing through, or that we ourselves need a change weather.

The same engine, managed in very different ways, can add value or complicate things more depending on how we react to anger. However... How do I control this reaction?

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3. Identify the signals it gives us before reacting.

What am I feeling on a bodily level? We can evaluate our breathing, realize that we are more agitated, pay attention for a few seconds to our chest inflating and discharging air abruptly. We realize that we are suddenly hotter, as a result of the increase in body temperature.

We can evaluate what kind of thoughts we have at that very moment: He's going to pay me! It always happens to me! He does it to me on purpose, etc. Realizing that these same thoughts have been repeated in other angry circumstances, almost like a scene that happens over and over again, only the actors change.

Of course, we have only a few seconds before reacting, for which, with practice, the control of my reaction will become more and more effective.

Also identifying patterns of emotional response to certain situations can help us introspections on deeper aspects, experiences not yet addressed, that are demanding my attention.

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4. Anger, rage and aggressiveness

An angry person is not necessarily an aggressive person.

Anger is an emotion. Anger, we can consider it within the spectrum of emotions, although at a much more intense level. That is, if the stimulus that generates anger is sustained for a certain time, we can begin to intensify our anger to the point of being almost instinctive. We can call this anger.

On the other hand, aggressiveness is the physical or verbal response to anger. We could say that aggressiveness is the discharge of anger or anger.

This usually happens at the height of anger. Therefore, taking a few seconds to see how we feel in perspective (in my consultation with my patients we call it “balconear”, as if we were watching a street scene from a balcony) this will give us a margin of time to regain control of our emotions.

• Related article: "The 4 main theories of aggressiveness: how is aggression explained?"

5. Dialogue with my anger

As we speak, our emotions are functional, they fulfill a specific function. We can visualize our anger as a person coming to care for and protect us, or to help us escape from a situation.

How is this person? Man, woman? Tall, short, wise or irrational? Does he know how to communicate or, on the contrary, was he never socialized? This will give us a concrete image of a part of ourselves.

Understanding this, we can ask him: What does he intend to protect us from? Is it from the neighbor? Or from a similar situation that happened before and caught us by surprise? Am I really that unprotected this time? Could it be that things are going differently now?

We must thank you for your protection and care, and assess your need based on the situation. Also ask him (ask us) if other emotions come along with him: frustration, sadness, anguish. Since behind the anger, (not always) we can show other emotions whose expression was not validated for us.

These points will help us connect with one of our most important emotions, and socialize it to find its healthy facet.