How to let the anger out?

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” ~Buddha

Anger is merciless.

It leaves you feeling torn up inside.

Your head pounds. Your jaw locks. And your muscles scream. Every inch reels in pain with the electric shock that shoots through you.

You can’t eat, or sleep, or function like a rational human being.

You’ve good reason to be afraid of unleashing that screaming monster of rage lurking inside you. You’ll likely lose control, lash out, and retaliate.

Even though you have been wronged, you’ll end up feeling guilty, ashamed, even horrified by your reaction. That’s one more regret your peace of mind wouldn’t stand.

But sometimes the person you’re enraged with is yourself. That’s a doubly painful blow of anger and self-disgust.

Being angry is exhausting . . . and yet you’ve found the energy to keep it alive for months, even years.

I have too. Oh sure.

I devoted the first half of my life to being angry, silently seething, and ever resentful. I’d periodically explode in rage and then be consumed with shame for losing control and screaming words I could never retract.

I lived on nerves that felt like they were constantly fried with 40,000 volts. That was a hideous way to be.

And for the longest time, that burning fury that raged inside me seemed totally justified. All that bitter resentment, well, “what else should I feel?” my thoughts screamed. No chance to be a kid, no carefree years, blissfully unaware of some of the bad things that could happen in life. They were right there, every day. They stole my childhood.

Growing up in an unpredictable, unhappy environment was the pits. I hated it, hated not being able to escape, and hated everyone involved because they were old enough to know better. They denied me my childhood.

My anger was borne out of having had no control of those events; my resentment grew out of a sense of loss. Oh boy, bitterness is so corrosive.

All that anger, all that resentment had to go for me to have any chance of happiness.

So with a newfound rationality, I learned to listen to my angry thoughts. I heard the pain and sadness wrapped in every one. I recognized the self-harm my anger was inflicting. I realized I’d been the one keeping alive those events and people that had hurt me, and I alone had the power to decide their time was over.

And that feels incredible.

I very much want that for you too. To be free. To let go of all that resentment, anger, and rage.

How? With one small anger-conquering action at a time.

If you never explained your rules to the person who angered you, how can you be upset that they broke them? Maybe their rules are different.

Candles and diffusers alleviate stress and anxiety. Or try a couple of calming drops of essential lavender oil on your pillow.

Wake up to a soothing self-recorded message. Alternatively, use an app.

Change your anger to compassion because they are obviously struggling with their own negative emotions.

Choose some anger-defeating text for your mug. Use it at work or home.

Relax in a warm bath as you watch the bath-bomb and your anger fizzle away.

If you’re likely to fall into a rage when speaking up, say nothing at all. “Silence is sometimes the best answer.” ~Dalai Lama

Close your eyes and see your mind as a crystal-blue ocean of calm. See your anger as a single drop of water falling into your calm ocean, barely causing a ripple before being absorbed.

Make a night sky with luminous stars and planets. Lie on your bed with the lights off, and pick a star to project your anger onto. Now re-focus to see the whole galaxy with your anger as a tiny dot among a universe of peace.

Anxiety and irritability are instigated by lack of sleep. More sleep can be as effective as conscious meditation. “Sleep is the best meditation.” ~Dalai Lama

Someone can influence your anger response, but only you control it.

Flick the switch to off as if you were turning off your anger. Let your temper cool down like the kettle.

See how letting go will allow you to be true to yourself and finally at peace.

Now paint a happy mouth on the other half. Turn your angry mouth upside down and watch the happy mouth fill.

“Holding onto anger is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Unknown

This is the real reason they acted like they did. Heal your anger by setting out to help them feel better about themselves.

Write an angry thought on each one and step on them until they pop, leaving only the shredded remnants of your deflated anger.

Imagine it trying to break out of your “mind paddock.” Rein it in.

In confrontational situations, remember: “Speak in anger and you will have made the best speech you will regret.” ~Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Avoid confrontational colors like red and black. Instead wear calming blue or soothing green.

Avoid anger by playing with your ring and thinking of those soothing words.

Look in the mirror and let your anger out. “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

Take those hurtful letters, print off those emails, or write out your angry thoughts. Push the pages through a shredder, and reduce your anger to tatters.

Capture your angry thoughts on your phone or computer. Listen back to this as if it were a good friend telling you theirs. Offer yourself the empathetic advice you would give a friend.

Regain control of your emotions by repeating, “I’m a happy person who does not see the benefit of staying angry.”

Use feel-good endorphins to dispel anger by going for a run or singing loudly and dancing energetically.

A supportive environment can be hugely beneficial in getting your emotions out safely.

Hypnosis can help you get your anger under control. Alternatively, try a registered hypnotherapist.

If you cannot change the events that have made you angry, change your perspective for the sake of your peace of mind.

Wash away your anger with calming ylang ylang or chamomile shower gel.

Imagine it as a fiery-tempered troll in your path. Push it away.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor E. Frankl. Decide that your response will not be anger.

“He who angers you, conquers you.” ~Elizabeth Kenny. Repeat it to yourself when you feel anger rising, or pull it out and read if possible.

In a confrontational situation, physically take a step back.

What are you achieving by holding on to anger? Is it a case of injured pride that you would really love to swap for forgiveness?

Stop these from taking root in your mind. Instead, raise a happy, forgiving “mind garden” by populating your thoughts with anger-defeating quotes.

Take the idea above a step further with a flower border or window box. For your own well-being, plant a flower for anyone who has angered you to signify your wish to forgive them.

When you tend your Garden of Compassion, picture each weed you root out as further uprooting your anger.

If you feel stuck in a cycle of resentment and anger, consider taking a course.

“People are too serious. All the time, too serious.” ~Dalai Lama. Anger is sometimes just injured self-pride. It’s not easy, but try not taking yourself so seriously.

Being angry has stolen your happiness for too long.

It’s eaten you up from the inside and shattered your peace of mind.

It’s even affected your health.

But worse still, it’s allowed the person or events that caused your anger to have power over you.

Just imagine getting through a whole day without losing your temper.

Imagine that seething resentment disappearing, leaving you feeling liberated of all those toxic thoughts.

Imagine being able to react with forgiveness instead of rage and being able to respond by letting go rather than clinging on to old hurts and wrongs.

By taking small, simple actions, you can take great leaps in beating your anger monster for good.

Try to be open-minded in letting these ideas speak to you. Pick the ones that shout loudest.

Put yourself back in charge of your emotions, your life, and your happiness.

Happy woman image via Shutterstock

Pent-up anger is a common emotion, but sometimes it can feel challenging to keep rage under control. Learning how to release your emotions appropriately may help you stabilize your moods, have healthy relationships, and improve your overall health.

Anger can sometimes be a natural response when you face perceived threats. It can be a survival instinct that activates the body’s fight-or-flight reaction. Muscles may tighten, and the face and hands may begin to flush. This can inspire powerful, and sometimes aggressive, feelings and actions when we feel attacked.

Strong emotions such as rage can be triggered by both internal and external factors. External triggers are a result of outside influences, such as a coworker spreading rumors about you or a person cutting you off in heavy traffic. Internal triggers may involve brooding about personal issues or obsessing over negative experiences from the past. Learned behaviors, inherited tendencies, and brain chemistry may also play a role in the severity of these feelings. Learning how to release these emotions in a healthy way can greatly improve your mental health.

Feeling rage easily may mean you have a low tolerance for frustration. However, it is possible to learn how to calm your anger and release your emotions in a healthy way. Research shows that therapy can help with anger management. In one study, 75% of people with anger management problems benefited from therapy.

Anger can be caused by several factors. Genetics and physiological factors can play a role in emotions, even at an early age. Learned social and cultural behaviors may also affect someone’s ability to handle strong feelings like anger. If someone is taught that expressing negative emotions is bad or rude, they may suppress their feelings or lash out when they can’t handle the anger any longer. Finally, family background can play a role. People who grow up in families that are chaotic, disruptive, or not skilled in expressing emotions may have more difficulty managing anger.

Suppressed anger can pose problems for your physical health, mental health, and relationships. What can you do about it? There are several techniques people use to express their emotions, discussed below. Everyone handles moods differently, so you might try several strategies to determine which ones work best for you when you’re feeling like your inner angry woman is about the burst.

Physical activity can be a great way to express anger and put yourself in a better mood. The chemicals activated in the brain while doing the physical activity are natural mood stabilizers. Working out may also help you to redirect the anger into a healthy activity. Although exercise may not solve the problems that caused your initial mood, it may neutralize the difficult emotions so that you can think more clearly about solutions.

When you’re feeling anger, your breathing may increase. You may find that you take short and shallow breaths. This can trigger other physical symptoms, such as high blood pressure. Breathing exercises may help you to calm down from the body’s fight-or-flight alertness.

To start, you might practice taking slow, controlled breaths. Imagine the air going in through your nose all the way to your lungs. Then, follow the breath as it leaves your body.

You might also try counting as you breathe. For example, you can inhale while counting to four, hold your breath for another count of four, and then exhale counting to four again.

When you feel rage, you may notice that your muscles seem to tense up throughout your body. One way to release rage is to address this tension. You might try slowly tensing and relaxing each muscle group one at a time. These muscle relaxation techniques may help your body recover from the muscle-tightening response to anger.

Guided meditations can sometimes help calm rage or other emotions. Several websites offer guided meditations for calming the nerves. You could even install a meditation app on your smartphone to use whenever you’re angry, or you may even use it a few times a week as a preventive strategy.

Sometimes writing thoughts and emotions on paper helps get them out of your head and puts them in perspective. You might consider journaling, writing poetry, or writing a letter or email to someone who wronged you (that you may or may not send). Writing can sometimes help organize your thoughts and may provide insight into the situation. When you write, you might try to avoid focusing only on the adverse aspect of the event or situation. Instead, you can try to brainstorm solutions or how to handle things differently in the future. You can write until your feelings of rage are expressed.

Sometimes it’s simply best to walk away from the source of anger. It could be permanent or temporary, but either way, it can be helpful to take a break from the triggers consistently causing rage. If you must end a relationship or find a different job, you might do so if possible.

When you feel rage, “black-and-white thinking” is common, and it can be easy to perceive problems to be much worse than they are. Cognitive restructuring may help you replace negative thoughts with more rational ones. Below are some tips for changing your thinking :

(Friends, Family, Therapists, Workout Partners, Parents, etc.)

If you are experiencing anger, finding an appropriate support network could be the difference between lashing out at the world and constructively releasing rage. You might ask a family or close friend who has an empathetic, rational approach if they’ll let you vent your emotions.

Not everyone has the luxury of a supportive friend or loved one. However, some people who experience intense rage turn to therapists, who are trained to provide insights into thought processes and offer evidence-based strategies to constructively and assertively deal with rage.

A therapist can work with you to help you determine where your rage is coming from and how to address it. They can also help you learn how to express your rage so you can overcome the mental and physical symptoms that you experience as a result of it.

If a traditional therapy setting is not right for you, BetterHelp offers affordable, online therapy sessions. You can talk to a licensed therapist from the comfort of your own home via phone or video chat. You can also contact your therapist in between sessions via in-app messaging, and they’ll get back to you as soon as they can.

Read below for some reviews of BetterHelp counselors from people experiencing similar concerns.

“Josh has been really helpful to me and helping me find ways to control my anger. I am more positive now and it’s all thanks to Josh for helping me get strategies.”

If you have an angry feeling or angry thoughts from time to time, it’s important to address it. Though it’s a normal emotion that everyone has, we all can benefit by learning how to release anger in a healthy way. If someone has persistent anger, it can affect their body physically, like increasing the risk of cardiovascular, digestive, and immune issues. Chronic anger without proper coping mechanisms can also lead to increased risk of ulcers, bowel disease, high blood pressure, and stroke, not to mention the damage that can be done to relationships with friends and loved ones, especially when caused by displaced anger.

Suppressed anger is not an ideal anger management solution. However, avoiding stress-induced illnesses and events is possible if you can exercise healthy ways to release anger. Learn how here, with our top 11 ways to manage and navigate anger in positive, productive ways.

If you feel your heart racing and your rage rising, learn to walk away before you release your anger in an unhealthy and unproductive way, such as anger outbursts. Walking away from a situation gives your mind and body time to refocus and think about healthy ways to release anger.

For example, if you walk into the kitchen and see that the dog has gotten into the trash yet again, it might be tempting to yell and scream at your furry friend. Instead, step away from the environment for a moment to let your body (and mind) cool down before you deal with the situation.

This will take practice, but try to stop and think before acting upon your feelings. Your initial reaction may be anger, but if you give yourself a moment to reflect and allow the feelings to settle, you may find you can see something in a clearer, calmer light.

Many people who practice deep breathing find it to be highly soothing and relaxing. These people have also learned how to release anger in a healthy way. Deep breathing, also known as mindful breathing, helps stimulate relaxation and returns your parasympathetic nervous system to normal.

While deep breathing is calming, shallow breaths are not. To effectively deep breathe, try to inhale slowly through your nose while counting to 3. Then exhale through your mouth while counting again. Try repeating this process several times. Your body will naturally relax even if you’re feeling angry.

Instead of screaming at a friend or coworker, consider yelling into a pillow so you still feel the release of raising your voice. While it may seem silly, it can be a great way to release anger in the moment without letting it out on others.

Exercise is an especially productive way to let your anger out. It’s physically good for the body and fantastic for your mental health. Any exercise, even a short walk, can increase the body’s endorphins. Endorphins are a type of neurotransmitter that, when released, are proven to relieve pain and offer a sense of well-being.

If you feel anger building inside you, try to think of a person or place that brings you peace. Maybe you can find pictures on your phone of a recent relaxing vacation, or a photo of your kids laughing. Looking at images like these can be a productive and effective way to release anger appropriately.

Learning how to release anger can be easier if you focus on recognizing your anger triggers. Is there a pattern to your anger? Does it always happen at a particular time or in a specific place? Is it usually the same person who brings out the emotion? Does a messy kitchen or playroom frustrate you? What about being stuck in traffic?

Once you start recognizing your triggers, you can learn to cope with them (or avoid them when possible). For example, you can’t always avoid a messy kitchen, but maybe you can work out a cleaning schedule with your partner and set proper expectations of cleanliness. If one of your triggers is traffic, perhaps you can leave earlier or later, or find an alternative route, to avoid the rush hour.

When we’re angry, our thoughts can be exaggerated and dramatic. We tend to use absolutes like, “Everything’s awful because the cake is ruined!” or “Nothing ever works in this house!” Learning how to let your anger out is important, but try not to use this kind of extreme language.

Replacing these absolutes with more rational phrases can change how you see things. For example, “Yes, I accidentally ruined the cake, but maybe we can go out for dessert. No one will care!” or “Yes, the faucet may have a leak, but I’ll get it fixed. It’s not the end of the world.”

Journaling for mental health has many benefits:

Once you’ve identified and recorded your stressors, it’s easier to figure out solutions.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique that’s helpful for anxiety, anger, and stress. Learning how to release anger with progressive muscle relaxation is actually very easy.

To practice the technique, slowly tense and then relax each muscle group, starting with your toes and working your way up to your head and neck. As you tense and relax, you’ll find that you feel more calm and peaceful overall.

If you’ve tried these coping mechanisms, but you just don’t feel any better, don’t worry. These tips are just a starting point for positively redirecting your anger.

It’s OK if you feel like you need to go beyond self-moderated strategies. You can seek out a mental health provider. There are plenty of professionals who are trained to help people manage anger by developing real-life workable solutions, so don’t be afraid or embarrassed if you need professional help.

Suppressing anger is never the answer. The risk with suppressing anger is that at some point it might become uncontrolled anger. While you can’t eliminate angry feelings completely 100% of the time,  you can change how events affect you and how you respond to intense emotion. By keeping your anger in check, you — and the people closest to you — will be happier and healthier in the long run.

Learning how to release anger appropriately can be challenging. If you continue to feel angry and overwhelmed, seek anger therapy and consult with a therapist, counselor, psychologist, or other licensed mental health professional. Before anything, they can help you figure out why you are so angry and determine what causes anger. They can help you learn how to let your anger out in a productive way and identify other problem areas to develop an action plan for changing them.

Talkspace is an online therapy platform that makes it convenient to get the help you need. With a Talkspace therapist, you can have your questions answered, learn effective coping techniques, and overcome your anger.

Sources:

1. Mostofsky E, Penner E, Mittleman M. Outbursts of anger as a trigger of acute cardiovascular events: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur Heart J. 2014;35(21):1404-1410. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehu033. https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/35/21/1404/583173?login=true. Accessed July 3, 2022.

• Throw or break something (safely). via GIPHY.
• Scream – in private. via GIPHY.
• Sing it out. via GIPHY.
• Dance it out. via GIPHY.
• Do a tough workout. via GIPHY.
• Journal. via GIPHY.
• Draw or paint. via GIPHY.
• Change your surroundings. via GIPHY.

Then what’s the right way to channelise your anger? Well, don’t fret ladies because Dr Santosh Bangar, senior consultant psychiatrist at Global Hospital will reveal how you can express your anger the healthy way.

This might sound a little rude, but it will be better than saying things you didn’t intend to. It is one of the simplest things you can do to handle the situation. Just go for a walk outside to calm yourself down.

“Deep breathing has a very good impact when it comes to calming your nerves. It improves the oxygen supply in your body, and regulates your heart rate and blood pressure,” says Dr Bangar.

“Vigorous exercising not just diverts your attention but it can also release pent-up emotions by releasing the ‘feel-good’ chemical, endorphin. Plus, you can release your aggression while exercising. You can also use a punching bag to release your anger and feel light,” he shares.

Sounds difficult? Even if it does, it really works. Writing down your feelings either on a piece of paper, or an email to yourself can do wonders. Also, reflecting the trigger for your anger can be a step forward.

“We all know that meditation and yoga has a therapeutic effect on our minds. Deep breathing is one way of meditating. Also, if you develop the habit of meditating or doing yoga on a regular basis, then it can really prove helpful to keep you calm”, suggests Dr Bangar.

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Alcohol overpowers your emotions, making it difficult for a person to make rational decisions. It makes you more aggressive, and there is a possibility that you might get offended at the smallest of things.

“There are various ways to release your anger like hitting a pillow, scrunching a paper, hitting a punching bag, or squeezing a ball, and they actually work,” he suggests.

Drawing, painting, or colouring can have a calming effect on the mind and can totally help you release anger effectively.

“A tired mind after a sleepless night can lower the anger threshold, so make restful sleep of 7-8 hours a priority,” recommends Dr Bangar.

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