HOW TO DEAL WITH ANGER
Anger is an emotion with a love-hate relationship. People innately get gratification by venting out anger but never does anybody wish wrath upon themselves. So much is anger a most used emotion in the 21st century that, angry birds became the popular highest grossing game.
Inadvertently most of us have forgotten how to utilize the remaining of our basic emotions. Whatever is the condition we are in losing cool is call for self analysis and retrospection.
I don’t say that anger is a completely negative emotion. There can come positive outcomes through anger as well. Here I don’t indicate corporal punishment and disciplining. To understand it better we can walk around the Emotion Wheel created by psychologist Robert Plutchik as part of his psychoevolutionary theory of emotion.
According to this theory there are about 34,000 identifiable emotions out of which 8 base emotions are underlined with anger being one of them. In this process the Emotion Wheel was created to show how a combination of emotions led to a intense feelings.
This shows us the two sides of anger’s coin.
1. ANGER + ANTICIPATION = AGGRESSIVENESS
(Positive Side)
This emotion of aggressiveness is quintessential for sports persons, zealous leaders and anyone in general who need an adrenaline rush to achieve power filled tasks. Challenging times require aggression to get positive outcomes. This is the best combination for anger.
There can be advantages to anger if you know how to manage it. Anger management techniques are a galore. Music, meditation, movies the list is just more than exhaustive.
A personal inference I drew after observation is that, books have an adverse impact on anger & aid in anger management. I have found that often than not, people who are book worms tend to have greater anger control and are less prone to short temper as well. I pretty well love to say “Big books for Short Temper.”
The effect books have on you is multi-fold and how it controls anger?
- Diminishes the vacant spaces in mind which are causatives of boredom and boredom aggrevates into disgust which when paired with anger causes contempt (Emotion Wheel — ibid)
- Creates self awareness with ability to relate & adapt to situations better where we tend to think through in more refined manner with composure.
- Words are the most powerful tools to calm, ignite or entice the senses. Writings which elucidate self-help, growth and positivity definitely have a healing impact on the self and anger management id but a part of self growth.
Its all a personal choice to exhibit anger or channelize it to create positive results. It’s up to us to make the right choices. Anger not just has regrettable consequences, but it also harms the body by making it prone to aliments commonly including gastritis,digestive problems, respiratory issues and sleep disorders. Some of the common lifestyle changes which would help control anger include:
- Low caffeine intake
- Low intake sugars & salts
- Higher intake of greens & potassium rich foods like bananas
- Staying less in closed environments
- Indulging in a hobby
- Exercising for at least 30 mins a day and finally
- Avoiding the idiot box!