How Does Anger Affect Your Physical and Mental Health?

Anger can be a positive or negative emotion, depending on how it is expressed. Uncontrolled anger can cause significant harm to one’s mental and physical health. It can cause depression, headaches and other long-term health-related problems.

However, individuals can manage anger by learning relaxing techniques, exercising and counselling.

Anger is considered a powerful emotion that can be caused due to annoyance, disappointment, feelings of hurt or frustration. While this feeling can motivate an individual to make positive changes, suppressed anger can result in long-term destructive consequences to the brain and body.

Anger can adversely affect mental health, and its symptoms include –

• Irritability
• Frustration
• Anxiety
• Rage
• Stress
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Guilt

Anger can affect different parts of the body, causing various long term health issues. Its signs and symptoms include –

• Increased blood pressure
• Increased heart rate
• Tingling sensation
• Muscle tension

There are three types of anger that an individual manifests, including –

• Outward Anger – Shouting, cursing, throwing or breaking things, and being abusive physically or verbally towards others are some of its traits.
• Inward Anger - Reflects traits like negative self-talk, restricting things that make you happy, harming and isolating yourself.
• Passive Anger - Includes traits like being sarcastic, mocking others, sulking, and giving someone a taste of silent treatment.

Following are the main causes that can make an individual angry –

• Frustration
• Embarrassment or humiliation
• Guilt or shame
• Jealousy
• Hurt or sadness
• Inability to control a situation
• Feeling threatened or frightened
• Unfair treatment
• Feeling left out or misunderstood.

The risk factors of getting angry are as follows –

• Short-term Effects - Immediate anxiety effects include headaches, muscle pain, dizziness, inconsistent breathing, etc. It may cause further difficulties in routine tasks.
• Long-term Effects – Individuals may suffer from memory loss, stroke and relationship issues. Further, it may affect the entire life of an individual.

A short-tempered individual can follow the following tips to manage their anger in the long run –

• Understand the signs that trigger anger.
• Opt for counselling, group therapy sessions or anger management classes.
• Take antidepressant, anti-anxiety or ADHD medications.
• Neutralise a situation by taking deep breaths, a break, and connecting with nature to calm down body and mind or indulge in physical activities.
• Try to understand the reasons for getting angry, like bad memories or hurt by someone's words.
• Explore and come up with some solutions to express and resolve anger instead of suppressing the anger.
• Try to reach out to someone trustworthy, who can be a family member or friend or mental health professional.

Regular exercise can play a huge role in managing anger in day to day life in the following ways –

• Aerobic exercises help reduce depression.
• Relaxes muscle tension.
• It reduces stress from body and mind.
• Improves concentration and anger management skills to calm one in crunch situations.
• It increases production of mood-regulating neurotransmitters like endorphins and catecholamines.

Anger management skills can be developed at a tender age which can have far-reaching positive effects in one’s life. Here are the ways to teach children to express their anger in a learned manner –

• Lead by example.
• Teach them about anger as a natural emotion and to express it appropriately.
• Treat the feelings of your child with respect.
• Teach them to develop practical problem-solving skills.
• Encourage open communication at home.
• Teach them ways to express their anger.
• Make them understand the difference between aggression and anger.
• Teach methods to calm and soothe the mind and body when a child gets angry. 

In case of adults, anger can be expressed in such a way that it does not impact the surroundings adversely. Singing out or reciting quotes to take out frustration might help. Also, taking deep breaths or even trying to see the fun side of any situation can help you control anger.

All the information regarding “how anger affects your mind and body” is incorporated in this article together with some anger management tips and tricks. Teaching children to control anger at a tender age will easily qualify them to lead a healthy lifestyle. One thing to remember is that one cannot restrict or change something that makes one angry but can change the response.