Anger Can Take Control Of Your Thoughts

Anger is a feeling that takes over your thoughts, words and actions. It is a defensive weapon that, when used incorrectly, can go against you and cause you a lot of damage if you let it grow.

We do not like it, but we have all many times learned that we can not avoid it. It was developed as a natural tool against unfair treatment. For example, if a child complains and insists that his siblings have stolen a toy, this is a way to counteract the undermining of integrity. The problem of anger arises when a child cannot move on.

In other words, if you get caught up in the idea that “the person took my toy”, then your psychological and cognitive system will be caught in a spiral of negative thoughts and feelings that prevent you from moving forward.

The hidden vulnerability behind anger

We do not like to show anger in public, because we believe that this makes us look rude. We are afraid to express it, so we tend to only show it at home, to the people who know us, because we expect them not to judge us.

If your anger is not handled properly, it will not fit into society. But as we have said many times, by expressing it you can get information about what is bothering you. It allows you to analyze yourself and find a balance.

The main reason we punish anger is that we confuse it with rage or the exaggerated and uncontrolled expression of what is bothering us. In other words, we equate it with exploding and screaming.

But anger is not really the same as rage. The latter indicates poor management of anger. You can create an entire strand of a grain of sand if you hold back your anger for too long, and that’s when problems arise.

When you do not acknowledge this and express what is bothering you, it becomes a powerful mix of emotions that takes control of your mind, your brain and your body.

Why? Because you transform an isolated event into your main focus until it becomes an avalanche of emotions that only get bigger.

Understanding and expression, the first step towards calming down

When you make yourself aware of your feelings, you take a step closer to dealing with them and making them useful instead of harmful. You can counteract anger by expressing yourself and freeing yourself from much of the emotional weight that causes your negative mood to develop and threaten your balance.

Let us return to the example of the child who was robbed of his toy. It is good to evaluate normal and adaptable ways of promoting justice through protests and restoring the freedom that was suppressed.

But as we have said before, if the anger comes from a physical or psychological threat, it is important to turn these feelings into actions. Otherwise, you will be dominated by thoughts and actions that promote negativity without really taking care of the problem.

The anatomy of an emotional, angry brain

When you experience that you are being treated unfairly, the limbic system will get a spark that starts it all.

In other words, it activates the nervous system and prepares the body for action. Neocortex is responsible for calculating and preparing a response that is appropriate for the situation.

The limbic system releases catecholamines, which help us react quickly. During these times, the activation is high and it feels like you are burning. Your cheeks become warm, your knuckles white and your mind goes thousands of miles in a minute.

At the same time, adrenaline is released, which prepares us for action for a long time. This hypersensitivity can dominate the mind and it tends to live on the spiral of negative thoughts.

Therefore, the slightest touch can make you jump, cause the anger to build up, which leads to further cognitive capacity because you can not reason properly. This leads you to underestimate the thoughts that had slowed down the anger.

Emotional distance is necessary to calm the anger

The key to dealing with anger is to relieve irritation. This can be done in two ways:

• Physically and emotionally distance yourself from the situation to prevent the adrenaline from controlling you and get nourishment from your irritation.
• Stop your inner dialogue, or in other words, distract yourself and avoid the thoughts that dominate your mind.

This is why we say that anger is a feeling that enchants your thoughts, that convinces you that the thing that made you angry is the root of all evil.

Thinking aggressive thoughts creates a chain of anger that grows and turns into rage. So when you question some of these chains of reasoning, you can calm down the images in your mind that created such an irritation.

Slowly but surely, when you stop fattening the fire, it will begin to disappear, and you can analyze the situation without these chains that had control over you before. This is the first step towards emotional well-being.