And all you want to do is scream and yell back. But you know that’s not going to be good for anyone…
Looking at the neuroscience, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
So let’s dig into the research on how to get rid of anger, what you’re doing wrong, how to do it right and how it can make you and those around you much happier…
Suppressing Anger Is Rarely A Good Idea
The good news is suppression works. You can bottle up your feelings and not look angry. However…
It’s almost always a bad idea. Yes, it prevents the anger from getting out, but when you fight your feelings they only get stronger.
And anger is no different. What happens in the brain when you try to clamp down on that rage? A whole mess of bad stuff.
Your ability to experience positive feelings goes down — but not negative feelings. Stress soars. And your amygdala (a part of the brain closely associated with emotions) starts working overtime.
And here’s what’s really interesting: when you suppress your feelings, the encounter gets worse for the angry person, too.
You clamp down on your emotions and the other person’s blood pressure spikes. And they like you less. Studies show that over the long haul this can lead to lousy relationships that aren’t as rewarding.
Don’t Vent Your Anger
So you punch that pillow. Or yell and rant about the encounter to a friend. Not a good idea.
Venting your anger doesn’t reduce it. Venting intensifies emotion.
Sharing your feelings with others constructively is a good idea but “getting it out” tends to snowball your anger.
What does work? Distracting yourself. But why would distraction help?
Experimenters put a kid alone in a room with a marshmallow. If the child can resist eating it, they get two marshmallows later. The kids who succeeded in waiting went on to achieve better grades and more success in life. (They also stayed out of jail.)
Now this study has been covered a lot, but what they don’t usually talk about is how the successful kids avoided temptation; how they reduced those powerful emotions screaming, “EAT THE MARSHMALLOW NOW!!!”
They distracted themselves. Walter Mischel, who led the famous study, explains.
The Answer? “Reappraisal”
Imagine the scene again: someone is screaming at you, one inch from your face.
You want to scream back. Or even hit them.
But what if I told you their mother passed away yesterday? Or that they were going through a tough divorce and just lost custody of their kids?
You’d let it go. You’d probably even respond to their anger with compassion.
What changed? Not the event. Situation is the same. But the story you’re telling yourself about the event changed everything.
You know when you get angry and start telling yourself, “They’re out to get me! They want to make my life miserable!”
That’s reappraisal too — in the wrong direction. You’re telling yourself a story that’s even worse than reality. And your anger soars. So don’t do that.
As the infomercials always say, “But wait there’s more!” Reappraisal holds another big benefit: remember how suppression sapped self-control and made you do stuff you later regretted?
Well, just like the kids in the marshmallow experiment, reappraisal can increase your willpower and help you behave better after intense moments.
As the old saying goes: Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
So remember: “They’re just having a bad day.”
If it can stop these tykes from gobbling marshmallows it can stop you from going ballistic on people:
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