Anger

Understanding Anger

Anger is a normal human emotion that we all experience. Angry reactions come from many places: fatigue, embarrassment, frustration, rejection, when old memories get triggered, or when we see someone being hurt. Anger has an internal biochemical component and a behavioral response component. When we are threatened, our fight-or-flight system is automatically activated. The body responds biochemically: adrenaline is pumped into the bloodstream; muscles tense; breathing accelerates; heart rate and blood pressure increase; pupils dilate; and palms sweat. These and many other sensations are felt throughout the body, and they are impossible to ignore.

People who struggle with anger often feel that they cannot control themselves. This happens because these internal biochemical reactions are involuntary. What is happening inside the body is, for the most part, beyond our control, but how we choose to respond to these feelings behaviorally is within our control. We can choose how we express and cope with these feelings, and we must learn to respond appropriately. Anger is an emotion, and aggression is a behavior, one that is usually causes harm. We may not be able to control the underlying emotions, but we are always responsible for our behavior.

The stress response is activated with the perception of a threat. Perceptions are often influenced by attitudes or judgments. If you can resolve the threat either cognitively or by calming your body, your system becomes regulated. When you cannot resolve the threat, you remain dysregulated, and you experience emotions like anger, rage, or fear. What you are feeling is the automatic fight-or-flight response. The story you tell yourself about these feelings influences the emotion you experience. If you identify these feelings as anger, you are effectively predicting that you are going to act out in some way. Saying “I am angry” sets you up to act in a particular way. If you change the narrative, it can change how you deal with these feelings outwardly.

Fear and anger can be helpful if we are fighting or facing severe physical challenges. Fear puts us in a state of high alert, and anger gives us energy to fight our enemies, but in a civilized society, excessive fear and anger generally backfire and cause a lot of problems.

Fear and anger are helpful and adaptive at times, but they can also be highly destructive. According to Dr. David Hanscom, “Anxiety is the sensation you feel when you sense real or perceived danger, and anger represents a more intense reaction when you can’t solve the threat. These are hard-wired responses that are present in every living creature, and they help us sustain life. The only way to lower them is to decrease your levels of stress hormones, inflammatory markers, and metabolism (rate of fuel consumption). You cannot reason with or control the fight or flight response. It is as effective as talking to the hard drive of your computer – can’t work.”

When anger gets out of control, it is destructive. The higher cortical (thinking) areas of the brain go largely offline, and higher-order thinking shuts down. Simply put, we become less intelligent when we are angry. This happens because the primitive survival part of the brain instinctively takes over. When the survival brain goes into high gear to protect us, it consumes most of the available glucose in the brain. The higher cognitive structures in the brain have less energy, making the person less capable of rational thought. The person enters a self-consumed state in which they are far less incapable of seeing other people's needs and opinions. And in a modern society, thinking and working with people who disagree with us is vital to our growth and restoration.

Mastering Anger

Hidden Anger In Perfection

Perfectionism

There is an interesting relationship between anger and perfectionism. When you have high and very rigid expectations for yourself or for others, you set yourself up to be disappointed. We are all flawed and life is imperfect. This is not to excuse mediocracy; it’s just the way things are, and when you can accept this, it makes life much easier. Be a recovering perfectionist, hold to your standards but learn to tolerate imperfection.

It is important to become aware of how the nervous system works and to learn to respond outwardly in a more cognitively responsible manner. You can’t hold anger inside, but you do not want to let it all out, either. We need to recognize that anger is a natural part of life, but we also need to reflect on what has happened in the past when we got angry and acted out.

Anger is natural and necessary for survival, but it must be managed outwardly. When you feel anger or rage, you are in a primitive state. If you let this primitive part of yourself take control, you will respond primitively, which will set in motion primitive responses from any opponent, and you may literally find yourself in a fight for your life.

Some people use anger to their advantage. Angry behavior scares other people, who might back off or give in to the angry person in the hope that they will calm down. This can reinforce angry behavior. Some people also think angry behavior relieves tension. But if you look at the bigger picture, being chronically angry does not solve anything; it just drives problems under the ground, and they just pop back up again and again. We can’t go through life lashing out against everything that irritates us. This just alienates us from valuable sources of support. It also damages a person’s self-esteem and creates a lot of internal self-criticism.

Anger is likely passed down generationally; some people are more “hot-headed” than others, and some live or grow up in a constant state of threat. Dr. Hanscom writes, “Consider the hypervigilance of a feral cat compared to a pampered domestic one. It is difficult to truly tame a cat who had to fend for itself from birth. It takes less stress to set off the threat response, and this is also hardwired in for each individual.”