Anger Management: Know What Provokes Anger

In order to develop good anger management techniques, you must first understand what provokes anger, and the body’s natural response to anger.  Anger is precipitated by the body’s natural chemical responses to increased physical arousal, emotions, and accompanying behaviors, that result when a person feels threatened, or perceives a threat or loss. The threat does not necessarily have to be a threat of personal, physical harm.  It can be a threat to their self-esteem, when they believe their feelings are challenged or discounted by another. 

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.

Anger Management And The Bad Seed

The increased instances of poor anger management or a lack of impulse control, which is a direct cause of poor anger management, and children committing horrendous crimes such as murdering other children, committing school shootings, and killing their parents, have led some people to wonder if  some children just born bad.  Are there really bad seeds, or are these children a product of nurture or nature, or a combination of both? 

Emotional Immaturity and Anger Management

In the past, ‘blowing off steam’ was considered a healthy form of anger management, because it was believed to be unhealthy to keep anger bottled up inside. Unfortunately, despite evidence that blowing up does not solve problems (and causes trauma for the others involved) some people still believe in so-called “Healthy” expressions of anger, that often leave those at whom the anger is directed, devastated in its wake. 

Anger Management: Mature Ways Of Dealing With Anger

The most important step in anger management is realizing if you are easily provoked and have an angry personality, and learning to take responsibility for your responses to anger and irritation. 

Angry people live with high levels of frustration, but good anger management techniques allow them to learn to keep their aggravation under control, by accepting their temperament, and accepting the responsibility of dealing with it, by learning anger management techniques to deal with the cues and triggers that can quickly turn to anger.

Anger Management: What Triggers Your Anger?

In order to develop good anger management techniques, you must first understand what provokes anger, and the body’s natural response to anger.  Anger is precipitated by the body’s natural chemical responses to increased physical arousal, emotions, and accompanying behaviors, that result when a person feels threatened, or perceives a threat or loss. The threat does not necessarily have to be a threat of personal, physical harm.  It can be a threat to their self-esteem, when they believe their feelings are challenged or discounted by another.

Anger Management And Reacting To Loss, Threat And Trauma

While we all must learn good anger management tactics, it’s normal for humans to be angry, when they feel threatened, or feel betrayed, and are able to express the pain we feel. Our bodies are conditioned to prepare us to flee or fight when we are faced with threats, and when we are angry, our bodies are flooded with adrenaline and cortical, to prepare us to defend ourselves. We may not be able to control our body’s reaction to loss, threats or trauma, but we can learn anger management, and act in acceptable ways. 

Anger and Anger Management In Young People

None of us are immune to the negative aspects of anger and poor anger management.  Every single person has experienced anger at some time in their lives.  Since anger is a normal human reaction, often learned by young people, who have not attained the maturity to learn good anger management techniques, or live in homes where the adults have not learned productive anger management techniques, and have modeled their behavior, it is important that the whole family is actively committed to, learning good anger management techniques.  

School shootings, physical violence among families, friends, associates, and loved ones, are proof and manifestations of the fact that poor anger management is, especially in young people, on the rise.  Whether you blame the increase in anger related crimes, such as assault, murder, rape, physical and emotional abuse, on a lack of parental supervision, violence in video games or television, or other causes, the manifestations of poor anger management are becoming more and more commonplace, and increasing numbers of people are seeking professional help to gain control of the destructive effects of poor anger management.

Both internal and external events can cause anger.  Anger can be directed at a specific person (a friend, teacher, or parent) an event (academic challenges, loss of a loved one) or by frustration or worry over personal problems. There are many common causes for anger in school. Young people are easily frustrated and become angry when faced with difficult challenges. It is hard not to get angry when you feel you don’t fit in, don’t understand an assignment or project, when you fail a test, or fail to reach a goal.  Frustration can lead to anger.  Many students get angry at their parents or teachers, because they don't feel the rules are fair.  Sometimes anger occurs, without even knowing exactly why you are angry.  There are times it cannot be controlled and this is when we should seek help.
 
The worst thing you can do is deny your anger.  While you want to learn to manage your anger, so that your anger does not cause you to do harmful things to yourself or others, when you hold your feelings inside, they can lead to an explosion, and the only way to prevent that, is to learn good anger management techniques.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder and Anger Management

Perhaps the most problematic area in the anger management field is a serious psychological disorder called intermittent explosive disorder. Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is a fairly rare disorder of the brain characterized by explosive outbursts of behavior like throwing, breaking things, inflicting physical harm on others with little or no provocation. It is an impulse control disorder that is sometimes linked to temporal lobe epilepsy. It has also been suggested by studies as the underlying cause of road rage. 

Anger Management... The Art of Staying in Control!

What Is Anger Management?
Whether it is road rage, a provoked emotional outpouring of anger, or losing your temper over something silly, every one of us have lost our tempers at one time or another.  Anger management only becomes an issue when we are no longer able to control our anger, and have destructive outbursts.  A destructive outburst does not necessarily mean that you have broken something, or physically hurt someone, as a manifestation of your anger, it just means that, because of your inability to control your angry responses to a real or perceived stimulus, you have done something harmful to someone, something, or even to yourself. 
When your anger controls you, you may feel you are at the mercy of something that you can not control.  Anger can cause you to do things you normally would never do, and even things you could regret for the rest of your life.  Anger can even affect your physical well-being in more ways than one.  Studies have shown that anger causes your heart rate and blood pressure to rise.  Hormones, like adrenaline and noradrenalin, also rise when you are angry.  Anger can push you backwards emotionally, into the cave men era, when the fight or flight response was the only way to stay alive in an uncivilized world, so not only does uncontrolled anger effect your life in the areas of your personal relationships with others, it effects you physically as well. 

Building Confidence: What Should You Be?

Question: What is the best personality or the best identity for you to assume? Answer: Anything you want to be! A cheerful friend, a businesslike executive, a caring listener. Whatever is best at the time. Different circumstances require different attitudes. For example, to be a bossy manager at work might be appropriate, but you might drive your spouse crazy if the identity continues at home. To be a rowdy sports fan at a game is great, but not what you should be when asking for a raise. The reason people have trouble determining who or what they should BE is because they don't start with HAVE.