Living with Anger:
As Human beings, we experience different emotions. This emotion is what makes us special. Without emotions, our life wouldn’t be so interesting. Among many others, six major emotions influence our life. These six emotions play a vital role in how we live our life. The six emotions are happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise. Among these, anger is one major emotion that can make us or break us depending on the way we act and react. We have to be careful in dealing with this particular emotion as it is indeed a negative emotion.
Anger is a natural emotion that we all tend to feel at one time or another time depending on the circumstances or situations. It is inevitable and a natural occurrence. There is nothing wrong with getting angry or feeling anger. However, it is quite important to channel it out in a proper way. Get angry if you must, but get over it quickly. The reason behind this is quite simple – when angry, we fill the mind with all kinds of negative thoughts. Some may go to the extent of using abusive words or even their physical strength to channel it out. This could be quite dangerous as this will destroy the relationship that we have with other people. If not managed well, this kind of emotion may lead us to go violent as well.
Let us understand the most common reasons that make us feel angry.
1.Perception of righteousness:
Every one of us believes we are right. This is simply because of the ego that exists in us. In truth, this may not be always true. There is every chance that we can be wrong in many matters. Sadly, our egoistic mind just doesn’t accept this truth and makes us believe that we are always right. Hence whenever someone doesn’t accept our point of view we tend to get angry. The possible solution to this issue is quite simple. All we have to do is to broaden our views. Hence on many occasions, we need to think in the shoes of others so that we can widen our point of view. To add, it is imperative to understand the fact that we can be wrong too. Once we fill this information into our subconscious mind, it helps us to widen our point of view as we start thinking from others’ points of view.
2.Frustration:
Frustration gives way to anger easily. The competitive world that we live in brings in a lot of frustration due to various aspects. The reasons for the frustrations could be many. Many times things just don’t work as we wish, be it personal or professional life. This inevitably leads to frustration and in turn anger. Here we have to carefully analyze why things are not going the way we wanted. We all are born with a special asset. It is our thinking mind. Used correctly, it can do wonders. Whenever certain things are not going the way we want, we need to analyze the reasons for the same. Many a time, we ignore minute things that invariably make things don’t work the way we wanted. We need to analyze all the tiny aspects that are not working. If need be, we should be ready to change the approach too. We need to understand that life works based on the trial and error method. Sometimes, it is wise to take a step back and analyze our methods.
3.Failures:
Failures, to be precise, repeated failures play a vital role in making us feel anger. This is where one has to realize that failures and success are both integral parts of our life. Failure and success purely depend on our approach, efforts, and the way we handle our tasks. When failed, instead of getting angry we should look at it as a process of learning. From every failure, we should learn something and most importantly correct the mistakes that we have made earlier. We should understand that every failure takes us closer to our destination. Here one has to be careful and should avoid the same mistake that they have done earlier.
4.Imperfect world:
We live in an imperfect world. Our world is imperfect just because it is meant to be that way. Don’t expect everything to be perfect. Often we tend to get angry because of the ways of our imperfect world. So it is wise to realize that we live in a perfectly imperfect world. We have to be open enough to accept the world as it is. Of course, the same applies to people around us. They too, many times, act or behave imperfectly. This is the time that we should use tolerance as our virtue. In essence, we have to develop tolerance. Be it our society, or the people around us, we have to accept as they are and not expect perfectionism in anything and everything. It is wise to understand that people around us are tolerant of the imperfect quality that exists in us. Every living being has one or more imperfect or displeasing qualities in them. Of course, our egoistic mind may not agree with the above statement. Yet, it is the harsh truth that everyone needs to understand.
5.Food that we consume:
It may come as a surprise that the type of food that we consume matters a lot in the management of our anger too. According to scientific research, anger is connected to nutrition in many ways. Many junk foods that we consume today may go quite well with our tongue, but then, in the process, they affect our emotions too. To be precise, spicy and junk foods can give way to a change in our mood. Foods with added sugar and salt, artificial sweeteners, and other junk foods can swing our mood quite easily and drastically. To put it in simple words, unhealthy foods indirectly affect our emotions.
Since we love to experience culinary delights, we cleverly ignore the advice about healthy food. Sadly, this, in turn, have a drastic impact on our emotions, particularly anger. It is quite difficult not to yield to culinary temptations. Nonetheless, we should cut down the habits of having unhealthy foods, at least regularly. It is okay to yield to such temptations once in a while as the wonderful mechanism in our body can cope with unhealthy foods if consumed scarcely.
6.Hunger:
Hunger can have an adverse effect too. Often we see people who don’t follow a proper diet concerning time, quality, and quantity of food, have a greater tendency to get angry quickly. So it is important to follow a proper diet as needed.
How to live with anger:
The first and foremost thing that we can do is question ourselves for being angry. There should be a definite reason for the anger. Once you find that reason or the root cause, it will help you to deal with it appropriately. After finding the reason for the anger, the simplest thing we can do is to point it out or express it to those we are angry with. While doing so we should be firm, but importantly polite as well.
Many a time, we find most of our anger is either unnecessary or for silly reasons. When we question ourselves about this, we might get a solution for it too. Hence get angry if you must, but try to get over it quickly using your comfortable methods.
Anger is more mental than physical. Hence relaxing one’s mind with deep breaths and moving away from the place (or person) or taking a walk would certainly help them to concentrate their mind on something else. Of course, you can use different methods to control your anger; it’s up to you to choose your comfortable method. The important thing is to control the anger using any methods that you are comfortable with. Meditation and Yoga are the two simplest methods that can help you to have control over your emotion. Additionally, going for a walk to clear your mind is another easiest method to handle anger.
Don’t suppress Anger:
We should not suppress anger as it may give way to stress, a rise in blood pressure, and might even hurt our self-esteem as well. Moreover, practically it doesn’t help us in any way. We should let out their anger frequently. It is imperative to be courteous while doing so. Of course, we should not scream, use abusive words or take the help of physical power to do so. That will certainly make matters worse. The truth is no one in their right mind wants to quarrel unnecessarily or make things worse.
We should be civil in expressing it so that the other person should not get offended. Let him or her know your reason for the anger and together try to bring out a possible solution that both may eventually agree on. This happens all the time around us as humans have the natural tendency of agreeing to the disagreement
Everyone has the right to express their thoughts, opinions, or views. As mentioned above, we should express our views or opinion or the reason for our anger openly but rather courteously. Once we express our anger or the reason behind it, we feel relieved and don’t feel stressed anymore. The opinions of people differ from individual to individual, and they might not agree, but then, the good thing is at least you have expressed your opinion or the reason for your anger.
Don’t’ Judge, conclude and Decide when in Anger:
Many people take wrong decisions in anger that affect them for life long. Anger is such an emotion that just doesn’t go well with logic and reality. People being prone to anger give way to wrong or hateful thoughts. This in turn makes them take the wrong decisions and act as per them. Hence we see so much violence in our world.
It is wise not to judge, conclude and decide when you are in anger. Give enough time for the anger to go away. Please note that anger is such an emotion that it cannot stay forever. Given time and enough thought, it will clear on its own as it is a natural process.