Anger is a topic that I haven’t talked about in my newsletter till now. Even though it is one of the most common emotions we experience in our everyday life, we are clueless about handling it. Modern-day spirituality has demonized anger as if it is a redundant emotion with no psychological importance.
In this essay, you will look inside your brain and see what happens when you get angry. We will understand all the neurological chaos instigated by anger and how it fogs your mind from making rational decisions. Lastly, we will understand how your anger has deep and meaningful interpretations.
Neurological Warfare
Our brain is a complex organ, with different sections performing different vital functions, where information travels at the speed of 420 km/hr, faster than a Bugatti Veyron. A crucial part of your brain is the prefrontal cortex. It is the part of your brain responsible for planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior. You make well-informed decisions when your prefrontal cortex is in action.
Your brain has a cute little part called Amygdala. It is a component of your limbic system—a part of your brain responsible for processing emotions.
When you are angry, your Amygdala overpowers your prefrontal cortex. Amygdala is the wild part of your brain that goes crazy whenever you encounter a threat. It is the part of your brain that triggers your fight or flight response in threatful situations. When you get angry, it’s the fight response (mostly).
The Amygdala-hijack panics you to take rash and uninformed decisions, which is why you act dumb when you are angry. Our Amygdala gets preference in such situations because it is an older, more developed part of the brain than our prefrontal cortex. The former has 150 million years of evolutionary history, while the latter appears in the human evolutionary spectrum only for about 20 Million years.
In simple terms, the prefrontal cortex is like the inexperienced intern in your office, while the Amygdala is an old fart who is doing the same job for the last three decades or so. Even though the young intern might be more efficient, the experienced guy will always get to deal with the important stuff.
Similarly, our limbic system gets control in extreme situations because it is an older, more dominant part of our brain.
Is Suppression The Solution?
A general piece of advice in the mainstream self-help environment is to avoid the expression of anger. We think that suppressing anger is the safest way to save our relationships from getting sour. However, it is unhealthy to suppress anger. Expert psychologists advise against it.
One of the biggest causes of depression and anxiety is suppressed anger. A 2013 study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester showed people who bottled up their emotions increased their chance of premature death from all causes by more than 30%, with their risk of being diagnosed with cancer increased by 70%.
On a more personal level, you can develop deep long-term grudges against other people if you don’t sincerely express the cause of your anger against them. If kept that way for a long time, it can turn into something ugly—a massive outburst of anger.
Instead of suppressing your anger, try to be direct in your speech and communicate the reason behind your frustration without being too rude. Tell the other person what it was that triggered your anger—establish a boundary.
In the next section, we will talk more about how your anger reveals the nuanced layers of your psychology, and how you can use it to live a better life.
Metacognitive Anger Analysis
The first step of self-improvement is to know and understand the self. If you don’t know the mess you have to fix you are probably going to create a bigger mess than the one you are trying to solve. Your behavior is the reflection of the psychological and cognitive layers of your mind.
Instead of suppressing your anger, analyze it. Understand what triggers it and resolve the root cause of it. The only way to deal with anger is to confront it with open arms and address the problems it reveals.
Anger is revelatory. It tells you about your boundaries, things you can and cannot tolerate in a relationship or conversation. Having a well-defined boundary in your personal and professional relationships is important, if not, people will take advantage of you. You will get angry, but the suppressor inside you will just shrug it off.
You should clearly define the behavior you are willing to tolerate without sacrificing your self-esteem. Anger helps you to do that. Whenever someone violates those boundaries you get angry. The only way to prevent your anger turn destructive is to communicate that violation.
I appreciate your patience and dedication to read this essay. I am glad you made it through the end. Be proud of yourself, because today you have gained a deeper understanding of your anger and its underlying implications.
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