Healthy ideas for your inbox
There’s a lot you could be angry about these days: an injustice in the world, a layoff after years of loyal service, or just the never-ending traffic on I-5 or the pile of dishes left in the sink … again.
Here’s the thing — anger is a natural emotion that is often necessary. But many people, especially men, don’t know how to process their anger in a healthy way, which can lead to harmful or destructive behavior.
Learning how to manage and use your anger can help you better understand your needs and protect your relationships.
What is anger?
Anger is a universal, core human emotion that can signal when a boundary has been violated, something unjust or unfair has happened, or a goal has been blocked.
“Anger feels hot in your chest, it’s expansive, your arms feel really strong — you think of Popeye, you have steam coming out of your ears,” says Joel Jin, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and acting assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Anger often makes us want to take a stand, protect ourselves or protect someone else, or fight the source of the anger.”
This reaction has a biological purpose: the emotion prepares your body to defend against threats. Anger is healthy when it helps you express a need or establish a boundary. But problems arise when anger is expressed impulsively without self-control, which can turn into aggression or violence.
“Every emotion has this urge to act, but you need to have the control to choose not to act out on your emotions every single time,” says Jin.
Harmful ways to deal with anger
Many men don’t have good models for how to feel and express their emotions. As a result, they deal with it in unhealthy ways.
Acting out
You might have learned from your parents, peers or pop culture that anger is synonymous with aggression and violence. But they’re not the same thing — aggression occurs when you let your anger lead you to do something threatening or hostile.
“Aggression is behavior that could be impulsive, that could be retaliatory, that could aim to hurt someone,” says Jin.
Feeling frustrated that someone cut you off on I-5 is normal anger. Honking and tailgating them from an unsafe distance is aggression — and it can quickly become dangerous.
If you’ve never been taught how to process your anger, acting out might feel like the only way to release it. When you let anger turn into aggression, you risk hurting both the people around you and yourself. Plus, the repercussions can lead to a cycle of shame and guilt that can turn into even more self-destructive behavior.
Getting angry all the time
Maybe your outbursts aren’t aggressive, but you find that you’re irritable all the time, and the littlest thing ticks you off.
This could mean you’re using anger to avoid feeling other emotions. Many men are taught by their parents or society that they shouldn’t express things like sadness, fear or anxiety. Anger allows you to avoid feeling emotions you don’t think you should show.
Grief is a common example.
“In psychotherapy, we often see people who have had this tragic loss,” says Jin. “There’s a primary feeling of sadness and grief, which makes us look for connection. But if someone has learned that those feelings and seeking connection are forbidden, scary or wrong, then they might start to mask their sadness and grief or avoid it with other emotions, like anger.”
Or maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed during a stressful time at work, but instead of being able to ask for help, you lash out at a coworker or come home and say something rude to your partner.
Over time, this can strain your relationships and lead to isolation, depression and unhealthy coping mechanisms, like drinking or eating too much.
Suppressing anger
On the other side of the spectrum, you might have been taught that it’s not OK to express anger. Maybe the ways you’ve seen it modeled growing up felt scary or out of control, or it might be genuinely unsafe to express anger in certain situations where it is misinterpreted as threatening.
These reasons are understandable, but compartmentalizing anger can harm you in the long run if you don’t find ways to release it.
“People can still feel angry and express what they need, or point out something that someone has done to cross a boundary, without being mean, aggressive, hurtful or harmful,” says Jin. “Someone can be assertive with their anger and confident without being aggressive.”
Over time, avoiding and suppressing anger can lead to unhealthy ways of managing it. It could look like becoming a people pleaser who isn’t able to set boundaries or stand up for themselves. Or you might redirect the anger toward yourself, leading to self-criticism and depression.
“There’s a high cost if people aren’t dealing with anger and able to experience it and express it in a healthy way,” says Jin.
How to express and process anger in a healthy way
So, what are some ways to process anger and avoid aggressive or destructive behavior?
Hold your tongue
When you feel wronged, hurt or insulted, it can be easy to let words fly that might feel satisfying in the moment but will cause regret later.
“Try not to say words that you can’t take back,” says Jin. “You don’t have to be mean, critical or judgmental when you’re expressing anger to someone.”
That’s especially true with the people you love — who can also be the ones that get under your skin the most.
Change your temperature, literally
If you’re not able to calm down in the moment, remove yourself from the situation and try to lower your emotional temperature. That can quite literally mean going to the bathroom and splashing cold water on your face or taking a cool shower. Or it could be letting off steam by doing some jumping jacks or pushups, or going on a power walk around the block.
Take some deep breaths
If you’re not able to change your environment — say you’re stuck in traffic or a tense meeting — try taking some deep breaths. Jin recommends four counts breathing in, four counts holding, four counts breathing out, four counts holding, and repeating that.
Name what you’re feeling
Once you’ve been able to calm down a little, try just to name what you’re feeling.
“One of the healthiest ways to deal with anger is expressing it with your words — not blaming, not criticizing, not being judgmental or mean, but expressing, ‘I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I feel irritated,’” says Jin.
Being able to put words to your emotions can help regulate your nervous system — and it can change the direction of an argument from blame or insult to understanding.
Write it out
If you’re not a big talker, write out what you’re feeling.
“If people feel a bit stuck, I often say, ‘Hey, try writing what you feel down on a piece of paper,’” says Jin.
You could describe how the anger feels in your body, or Jin will sometimes ask people to use funny metaphors to try to capture its intensity — maybe it’s small like a Chihuahua or big and fiery like a dragon.
How anger can lead to productive action
Once you’ve calmed down and named what you’re feeling, the next step is to do something productive with it. If someone violated a boundary, how can you communicate that? If you’re feeling overwhelmed at work, can you talk to your manager about allocating some of your workload? If you’re angry about an injustice in the world, maybe there is a way to get involved and make meaningful change.
Or maybe anger is covering up another emotion you need to deal with, like anxiety about a health issue or grief that you haven’t allowed yourself to feel.
If you’re not sure where to start, it could be time to talk to a counselor and get some professional help, especially if your anger is affecting your relationships or leaving you feeling isolated or depressed.
Learning how to feel angry without acting out or avoiding it, and understanding where it’s coming from, can lead to personal growth and positive change in your life. It's important to remember that everyone’s experience of anger is different, from how easily it is triggered to how intensely you feel it.
“When we’re able to pause, take a deep breath, and start looking within ourselves to say, ‘What am I feeling? What do I value? What do I want in life or in these relationships?’ It starts to open up possibilities rather than reacting to life as it comes,” says Jin.
