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The emotion (or "feeling") of anger is a complex combination of physical sensations, cognitions (or thoughts), and behaviours.
The physical sensations associated with anger are well known. A racing heart, feeling short of breath, a dry mouth, butterflies in the stomach, trembling limbs, feeling hot and flushed etc. These may sound familiar - they are very similar to the physical sensations that occur in anxiety. This is unsurprising - it is the same physiological mechanism that underlies both emotions. Anger is the "Fight" component of the "Fight or Flight" response to perceived danger.
The physical sensations of both anger and anxiety are driven by hormones released by the adrenal glands (small pockets of tissue situated above the kidneys). These adrenal glands secrete adrenalin into the blood which rapidly disperses around the body. It is adrenalin that acts on the body to prepare it to either fight or run away by increasing the heart ("racing heart") and breathing rate ("short of breath and dry mouth"), raising the blood pressure ("feeling hot and flushed"), tensing the muscles ("trembling limbs") etc.
Common thoughts associated with anger include "He can't say/do that to me!" or "It's not fair!"
Behavioural manifestations of anger include clenching the fists, grinding the jaw and invading another's personal space.
It is very important to realise that all these 3 components interact and feed-back to one another, causing either an increase or decrease in the feeling of anger. For instance, if you're angry and you let yourself behave angrily - shouting and screaming for instance - you're body will secrete more adrenalin, thus increasing further the sensations of anger.
Anger per se isn't a problem - it is an emotion that has benefits in certain situations. The "anger" seen in animals when they're threatened or fighting over territory or mating rights is clearly a survival strategy. A passive, mild-mannered tiger isn't likely to live very long!
Fortunately for most human beings we no longer have to physically fight to survive, eat or find a partner. This makes a lot of our anger redundant. However, the "Fight or Flight" response has developed in us (and most animals) over millions of years so we will continue to get angry for the foreseeable future. This can cause us and others around us problems.
I'm not suggesting that we try and eliminate anger from our lives, but if we think it's causing us or others problems, we can try to moderate it and make it less damaging. Ideally we can make it work for us rather than against us.
CBT approaches anger by focusing on the thought processes associated with anger. The theory is that since our thoughts are a fundamental component of anger (along with physical sensations and behaviours), if we can moderate these angry thoughts we can moderate the other two components as well via the feedback mechanism.
Often it is our thoughts - our interpretations of events - that trigger the anger response in the first place. If we can develop a more balanced and rational interpretation of the world around us, we can nip the anger response in the bud. A good example of this is our response to criticism. If we interpret all criticism as a spiteful attack on us as a person, then we will get angry. If we are able to adopt a more balanced, rational view of criticism, we may feel disappointed but we will avoid getting "hot under the collar". We may even be able to see that sometimes our critic is right!
Another technique to moderate our anger is too think more flexibly. We've all seen toddlers and young children throw tantrums - they can be apoplectic with rage! Often this seems to be a result of immature, inflexible thinking - young children like to have (and make up) rules that must never, absolutely never, be broken, either by themselves or (especially) by others. Oh, the scenes of horror witnessed at children's parties when a child has "broken" the rules of a game!
Unfortunately, many of us adults continue with inflexible, never-to-be-broken rules to life. This is a problem if you want to avoid screaming and rolling around on the ground whilst wearing a suit. Examples of adult rules are "No-one must ever be rude to me", "Life must not be unfair to me", and (my favourite) "Other people must drive as well and courteously as I do".
There are many problems with these rules. First and foremost of which is that they're not really "rules" at all - they're your preferences. There is no law against people being rude to you, or life being unfair, or people not letting you out at junctions. You'd prefer it were otherwise, but that's all it is - your preference. As it turns out, most people are usually polite and drive decently, and the world may not be totally unfair after all, but there will always be exceptions. You can't control these exceptions, and by having such rigid rules you're setting yourself up for a lot of anger in your life. Try thinking along the lines of "I prefer it when things go my way, but sometimes they won't and I can accept and deal with that".
This leads to another technique for moderating anger - moderating the language we use. I don't simply mean avoiding swearing etc, but something more subtle than that, relating to both the words we use internally and externally. Language is a powerful thing - after all, our thoughts are made up of words (we a few pictures thrown in) - and we can use it to our advantage. So if something we don't like has occurred - someone's bumped our car in the car park - we can choose how to frame this event in language. We can think "I'd like it if they hadn't done that, they might have been more careful, this will cause me some inconvenience and expense" OR we can think "He's done this deliberately! He was probably drunk! How can this happen, today of all days!" One way of thinking uses moderate terms, the other uses extremes. Same event but different thinking responses. It's clear which response is not only makes this hassle more bearable, but also leads naturally on to sorting the hassle with a minimum of fuss.
Thinking more flexibly also involves accepting people - including yourself - as fallible human beings, capable of making mistakes and doing wrong. And yet despite these faults, they (and you) still possess dignity and are worthy of respect. This also means that we will accept that other people can have differing opinions and views and, even if we don't agree with them, we're not going to make ourselves angry trying to make them admit that they're wrong! Also, we're not going to label others (or yourself) as "nasty" or "useless" or "selfish" etc on the basis of one or two events or conversations. Everyone can, and probably has, been all of these things (and others) at some time in their lives, and probably on more than one occasion! If you label someone then not only are you being wholly inaccurate about a complex and changing human being, but you are also likely to interpret anything they do in the future on the basis of that label. If a "nasty" person coughs whilst you're giving a talk then obviously they've done it deliberately to annoy you. Cue the anger response!
A final way to moderate anger makes use of the interactions between thoughts, sensations and behaviours in a slightly different way. Rather than focusing on the thinking processes, this technique encourages you to focus on your behaviour. By moderating your behaviour you will provide "negative feedback" (also called "inhibitory feedback") to the anger response system, dampening down it's effects. So when you next feel very angry, rather than stomp around, shouting, shaking your fists and being intimidating, try taking slow deep breaths, relaxing your hands, talking at a normal volume and at a normal rate etc. This calm behaviour will send the message "Things are OK" back to your body, causing the secretion of adrenalin to tail off and stop, thereby reducing and eliminating the physical sensations of anger. Interestingly, behaving like you're calm also works on your thoughts. So calm, measured behaviour leads to a calm body and mind.
The main problem with human beings and anger is that, for most of us, anger is no longer very useful. In our modern lives we mostly confront irritations and inconveniences rather than an enemy tribe or voracious wild animal. It is no longer appropriate for us to go red in the face and want to smash the place up. Using the techniques detailed above can help us to moderate our anger.
I say "moderate" and not "eliminate". I think it is neither possible nor desirable to remove a fundamental emotion like anger from a human being. We need some level of anger to prompt us to act appropriately in situations where our interests are threatened. We may not be in physical danger, but getting angry can galvanise us to act when our bosses are giving us too great a workload or our government is curtailing our liberties.
But perhaps I should call not call this "anger" but "assertiveness"! (See above!)
Dr Steve Last is a Psychiatrist and CBT Therapist working in Edinburgh. Please visit http://www.drstevelast.co.uk for further information on psychological problems and CBT.
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