Awareness Self Help

Why Are We So Angry? Interesting Reasons for Anger

why-are-we-so-angry-interesting-reasons-for-anger

Anger is tricky! If we are constantly angry, we lose peace and relationships. If we never express our anger when we should, unknowingly we create a world where immorality and exploitation become the norm. Anger has a purpose. When we know how to use and channel it, it can serve us well.

We all know unproductive anger is bad. Anger outbursts, pouncing on others and harming ourselves are just not justifiable. Still, we often wonder ‘Why I got so angry?’, We constantly take up guilt trips, our confessions are never-ending and our resolution, ‘I will never be angry from now on…,’ is only remembered when we are repenting for messing everything up one more time!

But when we are frequently, extremely and exceedingly getting angry, it is time to evaluate.

So why are we so angry…?

Read More: The Psychology of Anger

We are no more conscious

If something undesirable happens and someone sets us off. Then, boom…  Our immediate reaction is ‘giving back’! Anger in most instances is not a thought-out response. Our mind hurries up and judges too fast. It wouldn’t allow us to probe the details of the situation, it just holds on to knee-jerk reaction and makes interpretations based on that.

 False comprehension + Fast and false judgment = Rage reaction.

We don’t give ourselves time to process things, ask for explanations or double-check the circumstance. We are reacting because we are lost in our heads and no longer conscious. Remember, productive anger is always a response, not a reaction.

Read More: The Psychology of Dangerous Behaviour

We don’t know how to communicate frustrations

Most of our angry episodes are triggered due to frustration. Frustrated because of big reasons, insignificant, petty reasons. It seems like our exasperations ranging from little to large ruin our entire processing and communication system. When annoyance bottles up, our communication turns bitter, harsh and rude. Sadly, instead of winning the empathy of others by conveying how miserable we are currently feeling, we literally shoo people off and add some more weight to our desperation.

Our mind sees everything with a magnifying glass

When we are angry, our mind looks at the issue through a magnifying glass and explodes. It amasses additional information, sees the situation as a potential threat and gets into defensive mode. Mind forms unnecessary link-ups. It relates one circumstance with 100s of them in no time! These mental link-ups successfully complicate things. A simple misunderstanding and miscommunication become monstrous.

Instead of being in the here and now and generating possible solutions, our mind stacks all similar and related information from past experiences and imagination. Thus, immediately we become active participants in this action-reaction drama and get into reaction mode, “This is disgusting, how can it happen to me?” So…  Bang bang…!

Read More: Rage Rooms: Providing Anger Relief or Perpetuating Violence?

We take things too personally

Everything that has been said/ has happened is grabbed right away by our ego. We form personal connections with everything related, unrelated, relevant and irrelevant. While the ego is active, it makes us needlessly over-sensitive and lets everything come and hit our hearts.

Our rational mind is resting

When we are angry, we turn irrational and silly. Our rational mind has taken a break at the wrong time. So, sometimes we just blow up and act in ways that don’t suit our nature, character or personality. Irrationality turns us mentally blind and we see darkness everywhere and fight it with our anger. As the wave of anger rises in the brain it prompts us to project anger at everything.

Read More: Anger: A Healthy Emotion or a Harmful Reaction?

Anger Works!

We are constantly flared up, simply because it works. We have realized that it is the easiest way to win an argument. Maybe quite often, we were rewarded for getting angry. Someone out there tried to calm us and quite our tantrums by providing exactly what we wanted! Maybe, a couple of times we got our job done only after an anger outburst. We have learnt that, if we lower our voices, nobody listens! One or the other way anger might have helped us (might be helping still) to get our things done. So, we began using it as a way to communicate our needs and greed!

We don’t know any other way of expressing and communicating

Most of the time, it’s not that we don’t want to express ourselves in a better way, it’s that we don’t know how else to express ourselves.  ‘If not angrily, then how else?’, is our problem! We may lack the necessary skills to communicate our feelings effectively. Hence, we are using anger as our major tool.

Read More: Passive-Aggressive Behaviour: Identifying, Causes, and How to Deal with it

Managing Anger is Important

It may seem trivial. However, feeling constantly furious and enraged can have detrimental effects. Checking anger issues is more important than losing our health, peace of mind and relationships.

  • Understand what is persistently triggering you: Extreme anger is not a normal response. There are certain situations, people, and topics that set off anger reactions in us. If we can consciously look through our day, we can make out that at a certain point suppressing our rage becomes impossible. Just get to know what exactly is evoking this fury and see how you can deal with it.
  • Speak when you are calm: Know that all you want to do is communicate. You just want to convey how distressed and dissatisfied you are over a certain issue. So, when is the best time to do that when you are calm?
  • Get moving: Exercise releases built-up stress and diffuses anger. Physical activity helps you to take your mind off anger-provoking negative thoughts and induces relaxation.
  • Develop problem-solving skills: Blowing up is not at all the way to solve any problem. It is the most destructive method to tackle a difficult situation. Remember, more than just the situation, it is our response that makes it more complicated. So, once we learn the skills to manage stressful circumstances, we also learn to respond without losing our cool.
  • Be mindful, meditate and practice relaxation: In an outburst, we are lost in the spiral of unconsciousness. We are unaware of how what we say or do can affect us or our relationships. As we start to be more mindful and relaxed, we get to stand outside of this spiral and examine. Then it becomes possible to choose the right, mindful response that saves us from the awkwardness of anger outpour.
  • Don’t take life too seriously: This moment may seem out of hand. But this is not a dead end. Understand that, in the long run, all these concerns causing a big disarray appear really minuscule. So don’t be dead serious. Looking at things lightly helps in better judgement, assists our mind to come up with better ideas and leaves us with peace of mind.
  • Humour helps in healing: Try to install more humour into your life. When we start to see life from a humorous angle and challenge our perspectives, many of life’s problems seem to fade away. Humour helps in healing the pent-up frustration that leads to anger explosion.

And above all, after all the best efforts you put in, if managing anger becomes unbearable, do not hesitate to ask for professional help.

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