Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems—problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. And it can make you feel as though you're at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.

Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specialises in the study of anger. Like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.

Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (such as a partner, someone at work, a friend) or event (a traffic jam, a cancelled flight) or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings.

Anger is self-destructive and can also lead to many other issues such as high blood pressure, depression, isolation, self-harm, harming others, substance abuse plus many other mental and physical problems.

When we get angry, our bodies experience a “fight or flight” response caused by adrenaline. Our teeth clench, shoulders tense, heart pumps faster, stomach turns, fists clench, muscles tense. These are natural reactions and can be useful signals to warn us when we are getting worked up. Sometimes it can be hard to admit to anyone, or ourselves, that we feel angry. If we are aggressive, we may make other people feel angry – and if people are aggressive to us, it makes us feel angry and no-one gets what they want, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Admitting that you have an issue with anger is the first step to conquering it.

I believe anger (as with other negative and unhelpful emotions) can stem from events that have happened to us during our lifetime where we have stored the negative emotion, rather than just learning the lesson from the event. Do you let emotion take over and become the emotion / do you act it out in the form of anger?

Don’t give anger your energy. You do this even if you are thinking about it; you are keeping the emotion alive. When you are full of anger there is no room for anything else.

Do you have anger in your life that holds you back? Do you want to remove it and start living the life you want to live?

For more information contact me at jo@yourwellbeinguk.com

Meditation also helps with anger issues as does breathing. We have a number of free resources available that will help. You can also talk about it, talking helps. Something I do if I feel anger welling up is to try to re-frame my thinking – think more logically – or I will take myself away from a situation and do something calming (read, walk, listen to music, and meditate). There are many things you can do to help yourself.