Anger is a powerful emotion. It can overwhelm us and cause us to act impulsively, without thinking first. When we act impulsively, we often act in ways that are counter to our best interests, our long-term goals, and our values.
Failure to effectively manage anger can result in severe repercussions, such as damaging our relationships, causing harm to ourselves or others, and even entangling us in legal or civil troubles. A single impulsive act driven by anger can leave lasting consequences that reverberate throughout our lives.
While some may argue that anger can serve as a catalyst for change or an impetus to stand up against injustice, it’s crucial to recognize that the fight-or-flight response it triggers in our minds often clouds our judgment and impairs our logical reasoning. Consequently, decisions made under anger’s influence are frequently ill-advised. This is because the fight-or-flight response disrupts the functioning of the rational part of our brain (see Arnsten, 2009).
Therefore, while anger can indeed offer valuable signals and motivation, it’s imperative to act when our thinking is clear, ensuring that our actions align with rationality, wisdom, and that they are consistent with our values and aspirations.
What is Anger Management?
From the perspective of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), anger management is not about suppressing our anger—for this only leads to a bottling up of emotion that often results in an eventual explosion of rage, and, as most of us already know, this will only lead to more problems in our lives and relationships.
Nor is REBT anger management about acting in anger. We want to listen to our anger, critically examine it, and then decide how to rationally proceed.
The emotion of anger has an evolutionary purpose – to enable us to protect our interests and defend ourselves and our loved ones. While it’s important to acknowledge and consider this emotional signal, it’s equally vital to respond to it rationally and ethically rather than reacting impulsively in blind rage. REBT anger management emphasizes the practice of delaying our immediate reaction to anger. This delay allows us to carefully assess this emotional impetus and think rationally about the most appropriate response. By doing so, we increase the likelihood of making well-considered decisions that benefit both ourselves and others.
We may examine our anger with a clearer head and find out that it is unjustified, or we may find that even though we have good reasons to have felt angry there is no action or response needed; alternatively, we may find that our anger was justified, and, in this instance, a well-thought-out response is the best option.
Mindfulness as an Antidote to Automatic Reactions to Anger
Mindfulness training can help us to learn to distance ourselves from our emotions—so that we are not automatically responding to them—and to learn to think critically about our perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
When we learn to stop reacting reflexively to anger and other emotions, we free ourselves from being slaves to our emotional impulses. When we are not in control of our emotions, we are led around by the nose by them and we must suffer the consequences of the impulsive actions they compel us to take. Managing our emotions allows our rational mind to take charge and guide our actions.
Avoiding Anger Triggers
There is no way to completely avoid situations or environments that trigger anger, but we can do what’s in our power to minimize these triggers so that we are not over-stressed and overwhelmed.
A good way to start managing anger is learning what triggers our anger. Sometimes journaling is helpful so that we can clearly lay these out at the and remember them. Journaling will allow you to identify external and internal triggers, and develop a plan for how to deal with them when they arise:
- External triggers —are those causes which are outside of ourselves, in our environment. Our external environment affects our moods and dispositions greatly. Stressful environments can often lead to anger or an intensification of anger. Seek peaceful environments and associate with calm, peaceful people whenever possible.
Once you have identified these you may find that there are some that you are comfortable eliminating from our life. With others, this may be impractical or near impossible. For example, it wouldn’t be prudent to quickly write off important and close relationships, even if they are currently problematic, before we have earnestly worked on improving them. In this case working on our communication skills and our general emotional regulation can help. Family or relationship counseling may help, as well.
Avoid starting discussions or making decisions when you are not thinking clearly or when you are prone to irritation. Use the HALT acronym to remember not to make important decisions or have important conversations when you are hungry, angry, loopy (intoxicated), or tired.
- Internal triggers — Mindfulness training can help us to create “distance” between distressing thoughts or emotions and our reactions to them; mindfulness allows us to sit with distressing emotions or thoughts, rather than automatically reacting to them. Finally, look over the list of common thinking errors to see if you are engaging in any of these, and practice disputing these ways of thinking when you are not emotionally dysregulated.
Dealing with Anger When You are Feeling It
Instead of denying that you are angry, which is a form of counter-productive suppression, it helps to admit that you are getting upset and calmly state that you need to take time to think and cool down.
Go for a walk, leave the room, or do anything that will allow you to calm down and think rationally. [Note: Avoid vigorous exercise, as this can further activate the sympathetic nervous system’s “fight-or-flight” response, and perpetuate feelings of anger.] Deep breathing exercises and self-massage can also help return you to a peaceful physiological and psychological state. Do not return until you can calmly respond to the situation. This may take minutes, hours, or days. It is always beneficial to “sleep on it” whenever possible. After sleeping we are often able to see things with a clearer mind, as if we were viewing it from a fresh perspective. You may also consider talking to a trust friend or someone else who might offer insight from an outsider perspective.
Sometimes we don’t have the opportunity to take time or to get up and leave the situation. In those instances, we have to use the mindfulness technique of “waking ourselves up”—of actively pulling ourselves out of automatic, fight-or-flight thinking and into rational, aware thinking.
When thinking about our situation, one of the first things we should do is to zoom out and think about the big picture: recognize that there are some things that are just not worth getting upset about. Is it really worth it to get yourself worked up, raise your blood pressure, and flood your system with stress hormones, etc., over, say, someone cutting you off in traffic? Will your expression of anger solve anything? Not at all likely. Could it escalate the situation or lead to problems? Definitely.
Sometimes it’s best to let things roll off your back. Many of the things that upset us are just not worth it. You’ll never have to see the rude person at the bar who spilled his drink on you without apologizing again, and getting upset is likely to only get you in trouble one way or another. People who are consistently rude alienate others and create problems for themselves; you don’t have to worry about trying to correct their behavior — they’ll likely eventually learn from the consequences of their behavior, and it doesn’t have to be you to show them those consequences.
It’s also important to realize that you are very unlikely to change someone’s mind—to persuade them that they are making a mistake or to change their behavior or beliefs—with an angry tirade. In fact, this often leads to the psychological phenomenon of reactance, where the person becomes even more entrenched in their position because they feel the need to defend themselves against a hostile attack.
Dealing with Frustration, Insults and General Rudeness
Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, was highly influenced by the ancient Greek philosophical system known as Stoicism. Stoicism teaches that we create most of our own psychological suffering. On of the important founders of the Stoic school, Epictetus, stated: “Events don’t disturb us; it’s the attitudes we take toward events that disturb us” (Epictetus, Walton, 1997). By this he meant that it’s not so much what happens to us, but what we think about what happens to us that harms us.
For example, consider a scenario where you are already having a bad day and you stub your toe on a chair. In this situation we might 1) become enraged and smash the chair, or 2) we can take a deep breath and wait for the pain to subside, realizing that becoming angry will do nothing to improve the situation. If we choose action 1 we are out a chair and we may hurt ourselves and damage other things we get use out of; we may also scare those around us by making them question if we can control our anger. If we choose action 2 we have delayed our reaction and waited until we can think rationally about what to do. Maybe we will move the chair or put padding on its legs.
The philosopher Massimo Pigliucci expands on this concept more in a great article he wrote on the Stoic view of anger.
In the article he cites Epictetus as saying: “Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves – that is, our opinions do. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?” This seems like good advice to approximate: be like a rock to insults.
What does the insulting person get when you don’t react? You maintain your cool and they don’t — this makes them frustrated while you remain calm and undamaged. Dr. Pigluicci also recommends the use of humor, especially self-deprecating humor to defuse tense situations and take the sting out of the harshness of the situation.
If someone is behaving in a generally rude or insulting manner it seems unlikely that they would have a great deal of life wisdom to share with us. This rough rule of thumb, should inform us, to a degree, about how much weight we should we give to a rude person’s opinions. That said, it might benefit us to take a step back from our emotions and examine what they are expressing (while discarding hurtful language meant to hurt us). Are they offering any valid criticisms that we might use in a constructive way, to better ourselves?
How to Communicate When Anger Arises
Sometimes we are not able to get away when our anger rises, and in that situation we have to apply our techniques for dealing with anger in real-time, and communicate in a way that allows us to calm ourselves and the other person/s down.
When discussing or debating any issue it is always important to find common ground first. Identify what it is you agree on, even if it is only that you want to stop arguing or being angry with one another. If we are able to, it can help to put things into writing, whether you want to communicate that way, or if you just want to map things out in writing before you express them verbally. Writing forces us to think through our words in slow motion, whereas in speech we can often say things without thinking about their impact or if the words we choose best convey what we really want to say.
Try to show the other person that you understand their position or their frustration. Make sure you are able to completely understand their side before you express your position. Be assertive and use “I” statements, e.g., I get upset when you say ____. Show you are listening to what the other person has to say (no one will listen to you if you don’t do the same for them). Empathize with the other person; try to compromise; communicate how something made you feel, and what the other person might do differently; show you care (if you didn’t care you wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, want to continue your relationship with that person). When responding, avoid situations and environments that trigger your anger. Keep emotions in check during the discussion by keeping your body relaxed; employ cognitive distancing if necessary and try again at a later time (see our Communication Skills page for more information).
If our anger is at our life circumstances, society in general, the government, or at some person we no longer have a communicative relationship with, we must channel our anger into improving society, or our lives and current or future relationships. Here we are not responding directly to an individual that angered us, but we are still responding by using our anger as an impetus and channeling that anger into healthy avenues of positive change.
One thing to keep in mind before our response is this great French proverb: “To understand all is to forgive all.” Essentially, this means that if we understood the other person’s mindset, and what has happened to them, we would understand why they have acted the way they did. For example, people who are rude and insulting are often quite miserable because of something that happened to them, or the unfortunate circumstances of their life. Also, it helps to remember that, especially with younger people or people with cognitive impairments/disabilities, sometimes they don’t have the ability to effectively communicate what it is that they are feeling inside — they may say things sound horrible and offensive, because they don’t have an ability to verbally communicate the nuance of their emotions.
If we learn to see people not as enemies, but as people just like us, who make mistakes and have been hurt or are hurting, we will learn compassion for even those who seem to be the worst among us. While the philosophical question regarding free will vs. determinism is nowhere close to solved, it is clear that to some degree a person’s behavior is determined by their circumstances, their upbringing, and their genetics. If we accept this it becomes a lot harder to harbor anger and hate.
References:
Arnsten A. F. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648
Epictetus, S. Walton. (2023, July 20). Section 5. Enchiridion. https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:ec,twh,pem,sw/section:5
