Lifelines: Anger management
By Jay Whitcomb
Sunday, January 4, 2009 12:00 AM PST
“Manage? You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t manage my anger. It just comes roaring out of me, and I can’t be responsible for the consequences. Anyone who knows me knows not to mess with me.”
This sounds just fine until you find yourself with assault charges, facing a judge. But there are some basic ideas about anger and understanding our own anger that can be helpful to us all.
There are two opposite ideas about the expression of anger in our country. In the 1960s, we were encouraged to “let it out” and tell people how we were feeling. Pound pillows, throw things ” it is bad for you to hold all that in. The opposite point of view became popular about 20 years ago: “Venting” does no good; it just makes a person angrier ” anger should be “managed” by controlling one’s thinking.
Uncontrolled anger can result in assault. In most states, assault is the physical touching of another person in anger. Usually it is a punch, shove or kick. But just the tiniest touch of a person while one is angry can be called assault. There are actually people in counseling for yelling, threatening or hitting things. One person we know simply felt threatened and called the police, and the angry person was sentenced for assault.
Anger management classes talk about “stretching out” the time we know we’re angry but before we act on the anger.
Do you have a short fuse or a long one?
If you have a long fuse, you have quite a bit of warning about your anger, which is time to “manage” yourself and assure you do not assault someone.
People with a short fuse have the hardest time, going from being relaxed and happy to totally enraged in a heartbeat. These are the people who act before they can think. They have hit or threatened someone before they even knew they were angry.
There are some early warning signs of anger: a feeling of hotness, tension in the shoulders, locked jaw, bunched fists, increase in pulse or breathing. One of the most important things to learn is recognizing when we are angry and taking a breath. Breathing can control the surge of adrenaline in our bloodstream, a fight or flee hormone we inherited from our ancestors that comes up when we are angry. We focus on one thing: to fight or flee. We feel no pain, and it can get us in trouble. In the time it takes to inhale and exhale one time, a person can get far enough away from someone so that touch cannot occur. I often tell people to put their hands in their pockets, because it keeps them from touching or hitting someone.
Finally, we need to control automatic thoughts. Angry mental images only cause more adrenaline to be secreted. Think about being far away from what is happening. You can train yourself to do this in the time it takes for one or two slow breaths.
Remember, anger is an emotion that can be managed, if we choose to do so. In making this choice, you can prevent yourself from hurting someone or getting into a lot of trouble.
Jay Whitcomb is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He can be reached at (541) 889-9167.
