Monday, November 19, 2012

Anger & its Comprehensive Management



The term “anger management” was coined in 1975 by psychologist Raymond Novaco. Anderson, who studied psychotherapy at Harvard Medical School, first wrote his own curriculum in the mid-1990s to treat offenders adjudicated by Los Angeles County courts. Demand grew after September 11, longtime providers say that it boosted the number of businesses and individuals certified to offer anger management by U.S. companies to more than 17,000.Courses meant for business people are often innocuously billed as “executive coaching” because of the corporate desire for anonymity—a characteristic shared with the medical Establishment .
What is Anger?
 Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems—problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. Anger is an emotion that tells you something is wrong. It might show that someone or something has interfered with your goals, gone against you or wronged you in some way. Anger can make you feel like defending yourself, attacking or getting revenge. Everyone feels angry from time to time. How you experience and express your anger may be influenced by many factors, like gender, culture or religion.
Anger is not a bad feeling. Some people believe that anger is bad and that they shouldn’t express anger. This is not true! It’s completely normal to feel angry when you feel threatened, but anger sometimes gets the upper hand. As a result, you may do or say things that hurt others.
Anger can lead to positive change if you express it in a useful and constructive way. Anger can motivate you to make positive changes in your life. It can push you to solve problems. It can help you stand up for yourself and others. For example, people who feel angry about social injustice may speak out and bring about positive change to the system .
Anger becomes a problem if...
1. Too frequent
 Anger may be appropriate, and it may help motivate you. However, if you are coping with lots of anger on a daily basis, it may be reducing the quality of your life, your relationships and your health.
2.Too intense
Very intense anger is rarely a good thing. Anger triggers the “fight
or flight” response, which causes all kinds of physiological
reactions—your heart pumps faster, your breathing increases, and others. When you become very angry, you are also much more likely to act impulsively and do or say something that you regret later.
3.Lasts too long
angry feelings that last for a long time are hard on your mood and on your body.
4.Leads to aggression
you’re more likely to become aggressive when your anger is very intense. Lashing out at others either verbally or physically is not an effective way to deal with conflict.
  1. 5.Disrupts work or relationships
Intense and frequent anger can lead to problems in your relationships with co-workers, family members and friends
6.Loss of employment
At its worst, anger can lead to the
Loss of employment and damage or destroy important relationships.

What causes anger?

1.      Anger-provoking situations
These might include frustrations, irritations, abuse and unfairness. Some situations fall into more than one category.

Internal causes
Different people may have different types of thoughts about the same types of situations. This is why some people become angry more often and more
  Evaluations: How you evaluate the situation will influence your emotions intensely than others.
 a.Expectations: Expectations about how things ought toturn out  , can also lead to anger if things don’t work out as planned.. If your expectations are unrealistic, you may feel disappointed, angry and frustrated when things inevitably don’t work out
.b)Private speech: Angry self-talk may make angry feelings more intense and long-lasting. Thoughts like, “I’m going to show them!” or, “He’s always getting on my case!” often make you feel worse.
 C.Tension/Stress: It’s much easier to become angry when you already feel tense or stressed out.

What can one do about anger?

Anger is a sign you need to take constructive action. Anger is a source of energy to get things done and to solve problems. The goal of learning to manage anger is to minimize the negative consequences of this powerful emotion and maximize the positive ones. Strength lies in composure, not confrontation.
Anger management is about:
·  Problem-solving
·   Understanding how anger affects you
·  Building skills to control anger

There are three main ways to manage anger:
  1. 1. Emotions
  2.      Relaxation: You can’t be relaxed and angry at the same time.
  3.     Humor:Making an effort to see the humor in your frustrations and aggravations can help to combat an automatic angry reaction.
  4. 2. Thinking Patterns        
  5.   Manage Your Thoughts
  6.    A good way to lower anger is to manage angry thoughts about the situation.
  •    Using affirmations (having POSITIVE THOUgTHS) can help you to a certain extent at conscious levels
  •    Take the following steps
  •  Examine the evidence—Look for alternatives—what are some alternative ways of viewing the situation or conflict?
  •      Empathy
  • Often, other people’s behavior has nothing to do with you personally, ask yourself: “What does this situation feel like for the other person?”  

   3.Behaviors       
  Problem-Solving,
Being Assertive Without Being Aggressive
How you communicate depends on your goals. Your goals (even when angry) may include improving a valued relationship, maintaining your self-respect, solving a problem, making a request, communicating your feelings, showing understanding, and more. 
Anyone can learn assertive communication skills. Being assertive does not mean behaving aggressively.


Negative reactions to anger: the 3 don’ts!
How you behave once you've experienced an anger-provoking situation can have a big impact on how angry you feel and how long it lasts. You may increase your angry feelings if you respond to anger-provoking situations with any of the three don’ts:\
 bottling it up, getting defensive or lashing out.
The science of Anger. ·
 When we get angry, the heart rate, arterial tension and testosterone production increases, cortisol (the stress hormone) decreases, and the left hemisphere of the brain become more stimulated. This is indicated by a new investigation lead by scientists from the University of Valencia (UV) that analyses the changes in the brain's cardiovascular, hormonal and asymmetric activation response when we get angry.
Anger and Health
The effects of anger on health have more to do with duration than frequency and intensity. The normal experience of overt anger lasts only a few minutes. But the subtle forms of anger, such as resentment, impatience, irritability, grouchiness, etc., can go on for hours and days at a time.you partly responsible for it by not giving clear instructions?

Express your anger
By taking the time to survey the anger-making situation, you have the opportunity to cool off, and you can make expressions of anger a choice rather than a reaction. This gives you more control. Be honest, but be loving and respectful.
for hours and days at a time.
Consistent, prolonged levels of anger give a person a five times greater chance of dying before age 50. Anger elevates blood pressure, increases threat of stroke, heart disease, cancer, depression, anxiety disorders, and, in general, depresses the immune system (angry people have lots of little aches and pains or get a lot of colds and bouts of flu or headaches or upset stomachs). To make matters worse, angry people tend to seek relief from the ill-moods caused by anger through other health-endangering habits, such as smoking and drinking, or through compulsive behavior such as workaholics and perfectionism.
Because it acts on the entire central nervous system as an amphetamine, anger always produces a physiological "crash," often experienced as depression when the issues
 What is an Anger Problem?
Whatever the form of anger, in persistence you run the risk of becoming a reactaholic, with your thoughts, feelings, and behavior totally controlled by whoever or whatever you’re reacting to. The more reactive you are, the more powerless you feel.
Physical effects: Some of us deny anger because of messages we received as children, telling us about how we should and should not behave. Acknowledging to ourselves that we are, indeed, angry is a positive step. Here’s how to release it and maintain the respect of others.
Admit when you are angry
The first step in dealing constructively with anger is to admit when you are angry.
Stop, look and listen
Stop. Try to identify what you are angry about
Look. If you've identified the cause, think about it before you act. Could it have been avoided?  Listen. Anger is like an old friend reminding us what we like, what we want and what we need.
Express your anger
By taking the time to survey the anger-making situation, you have the opportunity to cool off, and you can make expressions of anger a choice rather than a reaction. This gives you more control.
Anger is one of many ways the body responds to stress. . When a person gets angry, the body reacts by increasing heart rate and blood pressure and releasing elevated amounts of certain hormones. Although the body is able to adjust to “normal” levels of stress, significant and accumulated stress can contribute to disease and eventual death.
In fact, medical researchers have linked the stress response of anger to:
• elevated blood pressure
• increased heart rate
• tense muscles
• heart attack
• stroke
• ulcers
• migraines
• low back pain
• shortened life expectancy

Psychological effects
Unexpressed—and expressed—anger impacts a person’s mental health as well. Studies have linked anger to loneliness, chronic anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sleep disorders, obsessive-compulsive behavior and phobias. Anger’s harmful effects spill over into a person’s personal and professional lives, undermining a person’s capacity for emotional fulfillment and personal and professional achievement. Anger inhibits the development and maintenance of intimate relationships, often resulting in
  • ·  Marital and occupational instability.
  • ·  Creates misunderstandings and minor grievances out of proportions
  • ·  End relationships with people, even close friends, than work to resolve problems.
  • ·  Alienate themselves from others—even their own families.
  • ·  Have trouble being effective parents and spouses


Managing anger in Personal and Professional space.   
Identify Your Goals and Action Plan
 Think of your goals in terms of specific behaviors and your reactions. Use a time frame to measure your progress.

Don’t Play the Blame Game
Blaming others will not help you get over your anger. Learn to take responsibility for your anger
 Learn and Practice Relaxation Techniques Learning and practicing relaxation techniques on a regular basis can help you stay calm. Some examples include:
Deep breathingprogressive Muscle Relaxation(PMR) VisualizationMeditation

Anger Management Worksheets
 anger Management worksheets in which you record the causative factors, people and situations you feel angry about, your feeling and action you take about the anger in your life or work situation
Some dynamics of Anger:
We become angrier when we are stressed out and body resources are down
We are rarely angry for the reasons we think
we are often angry when we didn't get what we needed as a child.
When we see a trait in others we can’t stand in ourselves.
Underneath many current angers are our old disappointments, traumas, and triggers.
We get angry because we were hurt as a child or when a situation brings up an old unresolved situation from the past
Anger control and management tip: Be aware of your anger warning signs and triggers
, there are physical warning signs in your body. Anger is a normal physical response. It fuels the “fight or flight” system of the body, and th Pay attention to the way anger feels in your body
§  Knots in your stomach
§  Clenching your hands or jaw
§  Feeling clammy or flushed
§  Breathing faster
§  Headaches
§  Pacing or needing to walk around
§  “Seeing red”
§  Having trouble concentrating
§  Pounding heart
§  Tensing your shoulders
Identify the negative thought patterns that trigger your temper
e angrier you get, the more your body goes into overdrive
Common negative thinking patterns that trigger and fuel anger include:
§  Over generalizing. 
§   Obsessing on “should” and “musts
§  Mind reading and jumping to conclusions. Collecting straws
§  Blaming
§  Avoid people places and situations that bring out your worst

Learn ways to cooling down: . Quick tips for cooling down
§  Focus on the physical sensations of anger
§  Take some deep breaths.
§  Exercise. 
§  Use your senses. 
§  Stretch or massage areas of tension.  Slowly count to ten

If you are getting upset about something, take a moment to think about the situation. Ask yourself:
§  How important is it in the grand scheme of things?
§  Is it really worth getting angry about it?
§  Is it worth ruining the rest of my day?
§  Is my response appropriate to the situation?
§  Is there anything I can do about it?
§  Is taking action worth my time?

Find healthier options about expressing your anger
When communicated respectfully and channeled effectively, anger can be a tremendous source of energy and inspiration for change.
·  Pinpoint about what you are angry about
·  Take a break of five minutes if things get too heated
.Make the relationship your priority.Focus on the present. Choose your battles Be willing to forgive. .
· Know when to let something go and move on.

Get help from Anger management experts/counsellors/psychologists/psychiatrist/mental health experts/elders in the family and ask for their Support

If anger is damaging your life in any of the following ways:
§  Anger interferes with family life, job performance or school performance
§  Anger leads you to lose control of your actions or what you say
§  Anger prevents you and your loved ones from enjoying life
Anger leads you to act in a threatening or violent manner towards yourself, other people, animals or property
You Can  take a quiz on the internet on http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/a4jmJgM/Do-you-need-ANGER-MANAGEMENT
and get instant results.
Try to talk to a friend, family member or mental health professional
Consider professional help if
§   You feel constantly frustrated and angry no matter what you try.
§  Your temper causes problems at work or in your relationships.
§  you avoid new people or events because  You feel like you cannot control your temper
§  .You often have gotten in the trouble with the law due to your anger.
§  Your anger has even led to physical violence.


 You Need Counseling
A counsellor, psychologist or other licensed mental health professional can work with you in developing a range of techniques for changing your thinking,like cognitive behevioral theory (CBT) Therapy can be a great way to explore the reasons behind your anger

You can try Taking Assertiveness Training to  make you become Cool or join Anger management classes or groups.

Resons of Angry disposition:
Why Are Some People Angrier Than Others?

What makes these people this way?
 One cause may be genetic or physiological: There is evidence that some children are born irritable, touchy, and easily angered, and that these signs are present from a very early age. Another may be socio-cultural. Research has also found that family background plays a role. Typically, people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic, and not skilled at emotional communication

Anger in a family dynamics/abusive relationships:
Important Tip for dealing with a loved one’s anger management problem
While you can’t control another person’s anger, you can control how you respond to it:
§  Set clear boundaries about what you will and will not tolerate.
§  Wait for a time when you are both calm to talk to your loved one about the anger problem. Don’t bring it up when either one of you is already angry.
§  Remove yourself from the situation if your loved one does not calm down.
§  Consider counseling or therapy for yourself if you are having a hard time standing up for yourself.
§  Put your safety first. Trust your instincts. If you feel unsafe or threatened in any way, get away from your loved one and go somewhere safe.

Anger is not the real problem in abusive relationships
Despite what many people believe, domestic anger and  abuse  is not due to the abuser’s loss of control over his behavior and temper. If you are in an abusive relationship, know that couples counseling is not recommended—and that your partner needs specialized treatment, not regular anger management classes.
  1. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-02/anger-management-goes-to-the-doctor#p2
  2.    http://phys.org/news194528309.html
  3.    Darin D. Dougherty; Scott L. Rauch; Thilo Deckersbach; Carl Marci; Rebecca Loh; Lisa M. Shin; Nathaniel M. Alpert; Alan J. Fischman; Maurizio Fava. (2004). Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala Dysfunction During an Anger Induction Positron Emission Tomography Study in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder With Anger Attacks. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 61:795-804.
  4. Managing Anger – Self-Care Handbook. (2005). Deerfield, MA: Channing L. Bete Co.                                 Compassionpower.com/anger%20workplace.phphttp://stress
  5. .lovetoknow.com/Anger_Moods
  6.     http://www.apa.org/topics/anger/control.aspx#
  7.    http://www.angermanage.co.uk/data.html   
  8.  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-02/anger-management-goes-to-the-doctor#p2

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