Anger is healthy. Let me repeat that. Anger is healthy. The idea that no one should be angry is absurd and unrealistic. Anger is the body’s natural defense mechanism when someone experiences pain or hurt. This can be both physical and emotional pain. Our brains are built with a flight, fight, or freeze response that kicks in when it senses it is in trouble. Anger provides adrenaline that speeds up our heart rate, providing more blood to the muscles and giving us strength that we normally do not have. Anger is natural, what we do with it is what makes it unhealthy.
Anger can be a great tool for us to discover our boundaries, thoughts, and feelings, and give us the drive to push through challenging times. But how do we control our anger so we can use it healthily and positively? To be able to use anything, we must first understand how it works. Anger is a secondary emotion, so figuring out the primary emotion will provide insight into the catalyst. Understanding what triggers our anger allows us to avoid the situation and implement coping skills that will better help us handle it. Insight into our bodies and thoughts aids in understanding what we are experiencing.
Use your anger to push forward
When we become angry, we start breathing heavier and shorter breaths. Our muscles become tense, our heart rate increases and our vision tends to be narrow along with our thought process. Once we can identify these physical symptoms caused by anger, we can then control the anger to do positive. We can take time to re-engage our prefrontal cortex (the logic and reason part of the brain) to better communicate what we are experiencing and why. We are empowered to use words to resolve the conflict. If the situation cannot be resolved, then we have excess energy from our anger to do something productive, like work out, create art, play music, or discover something new. Anger is nothing more than a resource for understanding who we are and how we feel. Do not fear your anger. Accept it and learn to take back your control over your emotions.