LET'S TALK ABOUT ANGER

The recent lockdown due to COVID-19 has triggered many feelings, including anger. A recent Lancet article looked at previous quarantines and found increased anger levels in people in quarantine and frontline health workers alike.

What Is Anger?

Anger is a natural feeling: everyone feels it sometimes, whether it’s irritation, frustration or rage. Anger can be helpful, like a warning light in our car, telling us that something is wrong, that a boundary has been crossed, that there are feelings we need to deal with or changes we need to make. It can spur positive change or self-awareness. But anger can also be harmful, if it gets in the way of us leading our day-to-day lives, or becomes explosive or frequent.

We often associate anger with openly aggressive or destructive behaviour, but anger can also be quiet, involving withdrawal, passive-aggressive behaviour, or anger seeping out in our interactions.

Why Do We Feel Anger?

These are a few of the reasons:

Unmet needs. Anger is often a sign of unmet needs, for example the need for safety, the need for clear rules, the need to be heard, the need for control.
Boundaries or values feeling violated. Our mother-in-law drops in frequently without asking; someone behaves in a way which is not aligned with our values; we don’t feel heard. Sometimes, these can tap in to experiences from our childhood or earlier in our lives which are triggering. We can often feel that we are totally right or justified in our anger when a value which we hold dear is violated.
Anger as a proxy for other feelings. Sometimes fear, sadness, shame, anxiety are really what you are feeling – but these feelings can be hard to express. Anger can be a proxy for other, powerful but scary/overwhelming feelings.
Being shaped by an angry environment. You may have learned that anger is an appropriate response to many situations; parents may have modelled angry behaviour, be it overt or passive-aggressive. Children are like sponges, and learn from caregivers’ behaviours.
Not learning to tolerate distress. We learn to contain our feelings through our caregivers being able to contain them when we are little – to comfort us and help us process them. If this didn’t happen, certain feelings might be difficult to tolerate and feel overwhelming: anger can be one of these feelings.
Unhelpful ways of thinking. Black and White thinking, for example, means we are either right or wrong, and grey areas are uncomfortable. Or ‘shoulding and musting’: sometimes by saying “I should…” or “I must…” you can put unreasonable demands or pressure on yourself and others. (More on unhelpful ways of thinking).

What Is THE iMPACT oF aNGER?

Anger triggers our body’s ‘fight or flight’ response: our body gets ready to run from a threat, or fight it. Our adrenal glands flood your body with adrenaline and cortisol, our heart rate increases, we sweat more, and our mind is narrowly focused on the threat. This is incredibly helpful when the threat is a bear, or an out-of-control car: less so when it is someone not socially distancing appropriately in Sainsbury’s.

Long-term, frequent anger can have a lasting impact on your body. Prolonged release of stress hormones can destroy neurons in areas of the brain associated with judgment and short-term memory, and weaken the immune system. Anger can also affect your relationship with significant others in your life, or colleagues, and beyond. Lastly, anger can also bring its own guilt-cycle: feeling bad about yourself, anxious, depressed, low self-esteem.

What Can You Do About Anger?

These are a few of the things you can do:

Know your triggers. List the things that usually trigger anger, and the physical warning signs that you are going to get angry. Be aware that these situations may be triggering when you go into them, and be prepared to manage your anger. Where appropriate, consider limiting your exposure to these situations.
Connect with why you are angry. Own it: know why you are angry, check in with yourself on whether there an any alternative ways of looking at the situation, and whether your anger levels are proportionate to the situation.
Check that it is definitely anger. Many of us feel anxious, sad, or powerless in the face of COVID-19 and its impacts. Anger might be easier to feel. Check in with yourself, and connect with those feelings. You can use some of these tactics here to manage anxiety.
Recognise what you can and cannot control. The ‘locus of control’ exercise can be useful for this.
Communicate your needs, clearly, respectfully and assertively. Here are some great resources on assertiveness.
Take time out: remove yourself from the situation, cool down, and think things through. For example, if your discussion with your partner is spiralling out of control, it is OK to ask for a breather.
Distract yourself. Sometimes you can’t change what is happening. Distract yourself by listening to music, looking for every blue thing in the room, doing housework.
Write it down: sometimes, writing down what is going on can help you dissipate the feelings.
Breathe and relax. Take slow, deep breaths or progressively tense and relax each of your muscle groups. Breathe out for longer than you breathe in: this activates your parasympathetic nervous system and deactivates the fight-flight response.
Do something physical: don’t smash up the crockery (!), but pile up the sofa cushions and give them a bash; do some star jumps and press-ups; go for a run or walk. All of this gets rid of the chemicals flooding your body.

I like this coping strategies sheet, which expands on some of these tips.

Seek Help If You Need it

If you are worried that you have a problem with anger, consider seeking professional help from a counsellor or psychotherapist. This is a problem you can tackle, so don’t lose hope. This information sheet has some useful questions to help you determine whether this is the case, and the BACP website enables you to search for help. Many counsellors are working online in this period.

References

Brooks et al (2020). The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. Lancet, 395 (10227), pp 912-920. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8

The Centre for Clinical Interventions, Government of Western Australia, provides many excellent resources which I link to in this article: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Search