Anger Management And Causes Of Anger

We tend to learn behaviors from those around us, and anger, like anger management, can be a learned behavior. If we have lived with people who express anger, in negative ways, we are most likely to use the same approach.  The good news is that negative behaviors can be unlearned, and positive ones can be learned to replace the old, negative behaviors we have struggled with.

The key to changing old, destructive patterns of reacting to situations that make you angry, is to learn what causes, or contributes to, your feelings of anger.  The following are common causes that provoke anger.

•    Frustration and stress often cause people to react with anger.
•    Being extremely tired can cause people to lose their patience, and become irritable, and that can lead to angry reactions.
•    Keeping feelings bottled up inside can cause people to explode over minor issues.
•    When people feel that they are not understood, or worse, that their feelings are being ignored, and don’t matter, it can cause an angry outburst.

Consequences of Uncontrolled Anger
Anger can actually cause, or worsen, health problems. 

Anger can cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression.  According to several double blind studies, some over a 25 year period, those high levels of hostility were directly correlated to dying not only from heart attacks and strokes, but from cancer as well.  Further, anger that is kept bottled up inside, can lead to personality changes, behavior problems, and depression. 

Poor anger management is a key factor in domestic violence, child abuse, relationship problems, behavior problems, workplace violence, substance abuse, school and workplace violence and delinquency, and criminal behavior.                                                                             

Help For Those with Poor Anger Management Skills
Controlling the destructive aspects of anger, and reacting to it in productive, rather than destructive,  ways can even be healthy.  Only when your anger controls you, instead of you controlling your anger, does it lead to problems. 

Anger can cause problems with your family, friends, personal relationships, and anger can effect your overall quality of life, but anger can’t be totally eliminated from anyone’s life. Things will always happen that cause you to be angry, and sometimes the anger is justified. 

Frustration, pain, loss, and the unpredictable actions of others are a part of life that you can’t change, but you can control the way you let things affect you, and you can learn, through anger management techniques, to react in constructive ways, rather than the same, old destructive ways that damage your health, and your relationships with others.