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Dealing with Anger: The Importance of Practicing Mindfulness

  1. Getting to Know Anger
  2. Why is it so important to express anger? What are the consequences if we don’t?
  3. Improving Your Anger-Management Skills
  4. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Anger Management​

Getting to Know Anger

Even though the main topic of this article is anger management, we must first start from the very beginning and understand anger itself. There is much confusion in society surrounding the definition of anger. Oftentimes it is mistaken for irritation, aggression, or even violence. However, these are not synonyms. Aggressive expression and violence can (and mostly do) occur without anger at all. Studies have shown (Izard 1993) that the actual expression of anger may even prevent aggression and lead to a healthier relationship between people.

So, what exactly is anger and why is it so important to be able to feel it and manage it healthily? Sandra P. Thomas, an incredible expert in the field of Psychology of Anger, defines anger as a “strong, uncomfortable emotional response to a provocation that is unwanted and incongruent with one’s values, beliefs, or rights”. Notice how this definition articulates that anger is something we feel rather than do. This distinction is what separates anger from violence or aggression. So, we perceive anger to be an unpleasant, distressing emotion that is difficult to understand and express, but it is important to note that anger does not directly lead to aggression. Aggression is an action, not an emotion. It is exercised by an individual’s free will, and once you can recognize this distinction, we can respect and understand anger.

Even though it seems like the easiest answer to all of your problems to suppress anger, that is not healthy. According to research by the prestigious Paul Ekman (an emotions expert), anger is one of the basic human emotions necessary to our survival. The research conducted in multiple cultures around the world showed that anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness are felt by everyone at one point or another. Moreover, anger has a variety of very important protective functions, such as maintaining boundaries and building courage to protect yourself and others in response to injustice.

Imagine a world where we didn’t feel any particular way about injustice or someone being hurt. That doesn’t seem like a place I’d want to live. So, when you feel yourself becoming angry, remind yourself it’s okay. It happens for a reason and there is definitely something that triggered this response. The first question to ask yourself is: why? To understand your anger better, especially when you cannot find any obvious reason that triggered it, try thinking of anger like an iceberg.

With an iceberg, most of it is hidden below the surface. This is similar to how we experience anger. There can be a variety of other emotions and feelings beneath the surface. It is easy to tell when someone is angry, but harder to see the underlying feelings that the anger is trying to protect.

It can be incredibly powerful to learn to question your anger and look for the unpleasant, maybe even unbearable emotion that is being suppressed. The moment we recognize and accept the underlying emotion it loses the power of coming out in the form of anger. 

Why is it so important to express anger? What are the consequences if we don’t?

On the physical level, anger triggers our biological fight or flight response which provokes the production of several very important hormones. The most important of them being the stress hormones – adrenaline and cortisol. The moment they enter the bloodstream our body prepares to come into the activation state. This means blood is rushing away from the gut and towards muscles, your blood pressure and heart rate increase, and even the body temperature rises. Imagine how much effort it actually takes for the body to stay longer in this state. No wonder when we trigger that strong of an emotional response from our body it can lead to different kinds of health problems. Not to mention an overall decrease in quality of life due to poor mental health.

Take a look at the most significant affects stress hormones produced by unprocessed anger have:

As you have likely already guessed, proneness to anger and lack of its management can lead to significant short and long-term health issues.

The most common of them are:

  • Development of Coronary Heart Disease and everything that goes together with it: headaches, high blood pressure and a higher risk of strokes or heart attacks.
  • The Weakening of the Immune System
    It is proven that even thinking about an episode that made you angry negatively affects the level of antibody immunoglobulin A, which is the first responder to any infection or diseases, trying to attack our body.
    So when you are not working on a healthy way to express anger you may find yourself getting sick more often than usual. 
  • Digestive Problems, Abdominal Bloating, and Pain
    Hormones produced in response to anger affect the work of the digestive system and were, for example, associated with the development of irritable bowel syndrome and experiencing abdominal pain and bloating. 
  • Increased Anxiety
    Anger and anxiety very often go hand-in-hand, which means that if you already have a tendency to worry, not processing anger could make anxiety an even more significant problem in your life. Additionally, it is important to remember that trouble sleeping is very often the main issue that people with high anxiety levels have. So not only could anger have a negative impact on anxiety, but also lead to a long-term problem with sleep and insomnia. 
  • Depression
    Numerous studies showed the connection between anger and depression. Psychoanalytic theorists and clinicians used to describe depression as “anger directed inwards” and even though nowadays this description is considered oversimplified, research studies on the connection between anger and depression have shown an increase in outwardly directed anger or a greater degree of suppressed anger in patients with depression. Moreover, depression is associated with an increased risk of violent behavior, particularly towards a spouse. 

Improving Your Anger-Management Skills

Now that you know everything you need to know about anger, it is time to come to one of the most important questions. How do I know if I need to work on anger-management skills? 

Of course, there are a number of officially validated assessment instruments that are designed to assess the degree of an “anger problem”, such as the Spielberger State-Trait Anger Expression Scale (Spielberger, Reheiser, Sydeman, 1995), but the most accurate assessment is only possible when the individual is actively participating in evaluating their own behavior, its frequency, reasons, and consequences.

So, if you want to get a full picture of your relationship with anger take a pen and a piece of paper and answer these questions as honestly as you can. You won’t be showing this paper to anyone else, so do not feel pressured to exaggerate or downplay your answers.

  • Is it usual for you to respond angrily? 
  • How intense is your anger?
  • How do you usually express anger? Do you suppress it and try not to feel it? Or do you express it in physical actions or verbal behavior? 
  • Do you often start yelling, screaming, or threats when angry?
  • If you keep your anger to yourself what exactly is stopping you from expressing it?
  • How do you feel about your way of expressing anger?
  • What are the consequences of your anger expression? 
  • Do you know what triggers your anger? Are you able to realize what provokes anger when it happens? 
  • Does anger create any problems for you in the workplace or intimate relationships? 
  • Do you feel angry significantly more than usual lately?
  • Do you often have headaches, gastric distress, or other physical discomforts when you are confronted with an unpleasant situation?

If you responded to all these questions sincerely, you already have your answer. Do you act on your anger? Are you able to control it as well as you want to? How often are you angry in general?

The truth is, most of us could use some training on anger management or at least more knowledge on the subject. Let’s not waste any time and move on to an incredibly interesting, modern approach to anger management training that has already proved itself to be efficient, quite simple, and fitting for everyone.

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Anger Management

As one can easily assume, MBCT is a relatively new therapeutic method that combines two older approaches: Cognitive therapy and Mindfulness-based therapy.

The use of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques is proven to be a very effective treatment approach for anger and aggression, anxiety, depression, and many other psychological issues. In case you are interested in checking out purely CBT programs developed for anger management, take a look at the ones below, the effectiveness of which was already scientifically proven. 

The best examples of these are The Art of Self-Control program ( Feindler, Ecton, 1994) and The Anger Coping Program (Larson and Lochman 2002) 

Another approach that offers a different therapeutic modality is the Mindfulness-based approach. Mindfulness itself is not a technique or method, it is a way of being, a way of living every single day of life. When we decide to live mindfully, we accept thoughts as events in the awareness that we should examine without trying to change or replace them. Within the last couple of years, mindfulness became so popular that sometimes the question of its scientific validity comes to mind. Well, I can calm you down there. A lot of research studies have been performed and there is actual proof that mindfulness helps people deal with their mental health issues.

In 2003, Dimidjan and Linehan analyzed several clinical models using mindfulness interventions and described three activities that were always a part of the intervention:

  1. Observing, noticing, and bringing awareness to the moment. 
  2. Describing, labeling, and noticing. 
  3. Participating.

Even more important for being mindful is the quality of HOW you perform these activities. So whenever you want to do anything in a mindful way, remember to pay attention to doing it nonjudgmentally with acceptance and allowance. You also should feel present and be open to new possibilities, actively trying to not get stuck in your old patterns of thinking and behaving.

When we learn more about the concept of mindfulness it becomes clear why there are so many practices that help us learn to cultivate awareness and being mindful. Doesn’t sound that easy does it?

Anyway, let’s refocus on the main topic of this article – anger management. 

As you already realized, the Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Anger Management is combining the best of the old therapy styles while being thoroughly scientifically to show its effectiveness.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is credited for developing the most popular form of MBCT treatment. This course of treatment is an 8-week group-based therapy program that helps clients cope with the physical and mental symptoms that come with anger (Good Therapy, 2016). These groups meet weekly for a few hours and are asked to complete homework outside of class for the other six days. The ‘homework’ can include: meditation practices, audio-guided mindfulness exercises, and techniques such as three-minute breathing space (Good Therapy, 2016).

So, the first thing you can do to help yourself manage anger is starting meditating. Learn to disconnect from all the thoughts and worries for a moment and find your inner peace by creating some space between you and events that are happening. You can learn everything you need to know about the different styles of meditation, their health benefits, and how to get started from other articles in our blog.

As for anger, meditating and practicing mindfulness will help you in many ways. Self-monitoring and being able to notice the signs of anger is a fundamental skill in anger treatment because sometimes anger becomes one of our first reactions to different negative events or thoughts. Of course, it is incredibly important to change our behavioral patterns if we want to build healthy relationships with people around us.

When You Meditate and Practice Mindfulness You Will Be Able To:

  • Simply observe your thoughts and notice your feelings without acting on them 
  • Understand what is triggering your emotions
  • Notice the moment when negative thoughts appear and redirect them 
  • Realize if there are any other emotions that you are experiencing and hiding behind the anger (remember the Anger Iceberg?)
  • Make more informed, wiser behavioral choices

The beauty of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy is that most of the exercises and practices that it includes are easily done at home. You can learn to meditate and start practicing it regularly on the same day you are reading this article and it will already make a difference. If you want to learn more about mindfulness exercises you could try at home, read our new article, and finally stop postponing improving your mental health.

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