How Your Anger Hurts You — And How to Take Control

Everyone gets angry from time to time. But what happens when that anger gets uncontrollable or starts affecting your quality of life?

Let’s explore how anger can affect you — and how to deal with it healthily.

How Does Anger Affect Your Well-Being?

Anger can affect your physical health, but it can also impact your mental health.

For example, there’s a link between negative emotions like anger and conditions like coronary heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Anger can also lead to dangerous behavior on the road.

If you’re someone who struggles with generalized anxiety disorder, unchecked anger can potentially make your symptoms worse. In some cases, you may get angry at yourself for feeling anxious. Conversely, you may become anxious when you feel angry.

Finally, researchers have known about links between anger and depression for many years. While this doesn’t mean anger on its own can make you depressed, it can exacerbate symptoms for someone who is at risk of depression.

On the other hand, anger can be constructive when it’s managed in a healthy way. For example, it can motivate you to stand up for yourself or take productive action.

How To Better Manage Your Anger

Here are three ways you can use to deal with your anger in healthier ways.

1. Allow Yourself To Feel Instead of Suppressing

Suppressed anger won’t magically go away. It’s important to process your emotions and release them, whether that’s anger, sadness, or anything else.

• Take a moment for yourself: When you start to feel angry, step aside if you’re able to. Remove yourself from the situation that’s making you angry.
• Become aware of how you’re feeling: Take a deep breath and observe your thoughts. Give yourself the space to be angry, but don’t forget to breathe in and out so that you can keep your body calm.
• Take a meditation break: Need help calming down? Try a relaxation meditation or a guided mindfulness meditation to ground yourself.

Meditation can help you process your anger instead of suppressing it.

2. Practice Assertiveness

Angry outbursts can hurt your relationships with others. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stand up for yourself.

Practice asserting yourself in a firm but respectful way when someone crosses your boundaries or does something to upset you. Assertiveness doesn’t come easy to everyone, but you can practice taking small steps with people with whom you’re comfortable. For instance, try speaking up when a loved one makes a comment that you don’t appreciate.

3. Journal About Your Anger

Journaling about your feelings can help you become more aware of what makes you angry so that you can proactively deal with your emotions.

Start a journal or a log in which you can write about any events that make those feelings of anger come up. Describe how you’re feeling and take notes on why you feel this way.

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