From infancy, most people are instilled with the idea that emotions such as anger or sadness are bad and, therefore, should be nullified and hidden. However, there are situations that make it inevitable to feel them, and repressing them only causes emotional and physical damage.
Therefore, although anger is so badly seen, it is important that you know that it is an emotion and a reaction of the most normal. The problem arises when the emotion does not flow and makes you react violently or aggressively and do or say things that hurt and hurt.
This can lead to problems with your loved ones, at work or in your daily relationships with the rest of humanity. And also in your state of physical and emotional health. Therefore, it is important that you learn to know your anger, what motivates it, how it acts in your body and how you can do to channel it and release it without affecting you or others.
Why does anger arise?
Like stress, anger is a reaction of the organism to external factors that are considered a threat, so prepare the body to defend against it. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), anger inspires intense feelings, often aggressive, and behaviors that allow you to fight and defend against an attack.
Anger appears before a great variety of factors, such as frustrating and stressful situations, before the injustices that harm you, when something or someone affects you or your loved ones, when an unjustified claim is made, when discovering a deception and when your love own is hurt.
All people get angry throughout life, but those with a low tolerance for frustration are those who fall more frequently in this emotion and those who are often angry even for things that seem to have little or no importance.
That is why it is necessary to analyze what triggers your anger, so that you reflect on the relevance or not of the cause and learn, little by little, to remain calm when those situations that trigger it happen and that are not important.
What causes anger in the body?
When you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure rise and the brain produces a lot of the so-called energy hormones, adrenaline and norepinephrine, which are responsible for keeping you alert and ready for battle, as well as arousing the response of aggressiveness.
Anger demands more oxygen in the body and this causes the respiration to accelerate. The tension causes the arteries to contract and increases the amount of fat cells in them, which causes the bad cholesterol to rise. In addition, the metabolic changes produced by the anger favor that certain substances adhere to the walls of the arteries and, over the years, they come to close.
On the other hand, the hormonal imbalance retards the metabolism and too many gastric acids are produced, which can cause ulcers or reflux, and hunger also increases.
By seeing all the reactions that anger produces in the body, you can understand why it affects physical health if it becomes a constant emotion that you do not know how to handle.
How to do to handle anger positively?
As we already mentioned, the natural reaction of anger is aggression. Therefore, when a person unleashes your anger, it is normal for them to react with verbal and even physical aggressions, or make you want to throw or hit something. In addition, the state of alteration causes you to exaggerate things and complain about more for something that, in reality, was not so much.
For that reason, the best thing before an attack of fury is to leave the place where you are and avoid those discussions in which you and the other people involved could end up injured and the relationship could be affected.
Pause, go for a walk and get out. Try to control your breathing and start doing it slowly and deeply. If it is possible at that moment, do some exercise; it helps to channel and release the contained energy, in addition to producing the hormones that generate well-being and joy.
Once you are calm you can go back and clarify the situation that caused your anger, already with calm and empathy, without aggression or violent reactions. Also, analyze what exactly made you angry and try to find solutions to prevent it from happening or at least, so that it does not happen so frequently.
For example, if you are annoyed that the people you date always arrive late, avoid the displeasure and quote them 30 minutes (or the time they usually get late) before the time you plan to arrive. It is a pious lie that will avoid many angers.
If what infuriates you is the vehicular traffic you find in your daily journey, you can look for alternate routes. You also have the option to try other forms of transport, such as motorcycle or bicycle, or travel by public transport, where you have the possibility to make the journey more enjoyable by reading a book, watching a series or movie on your cell phone, or listening to your music. favorite Find the simplest solution to avoid those small angers that can turn into a huge fury.
What you should not do is repress the anger, because the contained anger will keep you in a state of hostility that will eventually get away from people, in addition to damaging your physical health, both by the reaction that anger produces and the somatization of emotions not expressed.
Do you need professional help to deal with anger?
The APA recommends seeking professional help in anger management when this emotion gets out of control and affects your relationships and your life in general, when it constantly makes you act aggressively and violently, or when you have reached the point where you get angry even for things that should not generate that reaction in you.
Mental health professionals can help you channel that energy and find techniques to calm you down, to change your thinking and behavior.
According to the APA, when a person who gets very angry is seeking professional help they can reduce their level of anger in an approximate period of between 8 and 10 weeks, depending on the circumstances and the counseling techniques used.