Anger is often a symptom of underlying mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, anger is not exclusively present with an underlying mental health disorder. Anger can manifest on its own, which can lead to long-term difficulties and struggles in one’s life.
Coping with anger and partaking in anger management to help control this intense emotion has great benefits for one’s life long term. It is important to reach out to learn about and find coping strategies that work best for oneself.
Anger and Anger Management
Intense anger can arise for a multitude of reasons, not always linking back to a mental health disorder. Anger is often categorized as a secondhand emotion that follows unwell feelings, rejection, threatening feelings, loss, pain, or other unpleasant feelings. While anger and irritability are symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, anger can also emerge in oneself.
Many people often use anger as a sense of control to avoid vulnerability and helplessness. Anger can be considered more satisfying than experiencing these senses, which can lead to developing an unconscious habit of inviting anger even in the slightest moment of vulnerability.
Physical symptoms of anger include jaw clenching, headaches or stomach aches, rapid heart rate, sweating, feeling hot, shaking, and dizziness. Emotionally, people with anger issues experience irritability, depression, a desire to remove themselves from the situation, guilt, resentment, anxiety, and feeling like they need to act out physically or verbally.
Other noticeable symptoms one may experience are:
- Rubbing one’s head or cupping fists with the other hand often
- Pacing
- Becoming more sarcastic
- Losing one’s sense of humor
- Acting abusively or abrasively
- Craving substances or alcohol
- Raising one’s voice, including screaming, yelling, or crying
It is vital to remember that anger is not a problem-solver, it only serves as a distractor in these moments of vulnerability and does not address the root problem. Instead, anger often creates more problems, leading to social and health issues.
Effects of Anger
Anger can have a series of effects on an individual, including both physical and mental effects.
The physical effects of intense and consistent anger include an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, and a rise in body temperature and perspiration. Health can also be detrimentally impacted by anger. Those with anger issues may experience headaches, digestion issues, insomnia, high blood pressure, skin problems, heart attacks, and strokes.
Mentally, someone with anger issues can feel increased anxiety and/or depression. If underlying mental health issues are not present in an individual, anger risks the development of anxiety and depression.
Implementing Anger Management Into One’s Life
Learning to express anger in a healthy, controllable way is a beneficial step in anger management. It is also important to recognize the underlying factor to these intense emotions, whether that be an underlying mental health disorder or underlying feelings of vulnerability one cannot cope with healthily.
Many clients go through sessions of individual and group therapies to cope with stressors and manage their anger. Verbal and nonverbal therapies benefit those with anger issues by exposing them to anger management strategies they can implement into their own lives.
Anger Management at Roots Recovery
At Roots Recovery, staff and professionals introduce the whole-person approach to care for their clients. The whole-person approach allows clients to heal their inner selves, repairing the connection between the mind, body, and soul. With individual and group therapy sessions, clients learn to express themselves verbally and nonverbally and understand themselves on a deeper level. For those struggling with anger control, the whole-person approach at Roots provides a safe environment for clients to heal.
In many group therapies, clients develop greater emotional intelligence, listen to their peers, and gain empathy for others around them. To help guide clients in healing their inner selves during group sessions, clients often partake in more creative therapies such as music, art, or writing therapies. In these groups, clients learn to express themselves creatively and nonverbally, letting out their emotions in a safe and controlled environment. For those with anger issues, these group therapies can act as an outlet.
Creative expression is also a beneficial tool to use in one’s daily life to cope with anger. When presented with a trigger or stressor, music, art, or writing can be personal outlets for those struggling with anger issues.
Roots Recovery also offers cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT focuses on exploring the relationship between a client’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Clients work to uncover unhealthy thought patterns to unveil how these thoughts cause self-destructive behaviors. With a therapist, the client learns to develop healthier ways of thinking to produce healthier behaviors and beliefs. CBT is useful to those with anger issues, as they learn to manage their irrational thoughts and cope not only with intense feelings of anger but also cope with their feelings of vulnerability.
At Roots Recovery, our staff and a team of professionals work to improve clients’ lives long-term. The whole-person approach to care is something we implement into each client’s journey. This helps the client heal the inner self, creating peace to help navigate life more positively. For clients struggling with anger management, our team uses this approach. In individual and group therapies, clients learn to express their feelings verbally and nonverbally. In verbal expression, cognitive-behavioral therapy is beneficial to help them talk through and discover underlying issues that result in their intense anger. Creative and nonverbal expression is often part of group therapies for clients to develop healthier coping mechanisms. Call (562) 473-0827 to learn more.
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