We’ve all been there.
That moment when your face flushes, your jaw clenches, and suddenly you’re seeing red. Maybe someone cut you off in traffic, your boss took credit for your work, or a loved one crossed a line. In that instant, anger feels like fire in your veins – powerful, consuming, and impossible to ignore.
But here’s what most of us never learned: anger isn’t the villain we’ve made it out to be.
Society has taught us to fear anger, suppress it, apologize for it. We’re told that “good people” don’t get angry, that it’s destructive and dangerous.
So we stuff it down, smile through gritted teeth, and wonder why we feel so disconnected.
The truth is, anger is one of our most misunderstood emotions.
It’s not just about feeling upset – it’s often a messenger, carrying important information about our boundaries, values, and deepest needs. When we learn to listen to what anger is really telling us, it can become one of our most powerful tools for healing and positive change.
This isn’t about learning to be an angry person. It’s about learning to be a whole person – someone who can feel the full spectrum of emotions without being controlled by them.
Whether you explode at the smallest provocation or haven’t felt genuinely angry in years, understanding anger can transform how you relate to yourself and others.
So let’s dig deeper. Because when we stop running from anger and start understanding it, we discover something remarkable: this “negative” emotion might just be the key to living a more authentic, empowered life.
What Lies Beneath Anger?
Anger is more than feeling upset.
Dig a little deeper into it and you’ll likely find:
- pain
- trauma
- insecurity
- anxiety
- feelings of failure
Some people display anger as part of a personality or mental health disorder.
Others have learned to use is it as a means to control others and the world around them. Because anger is easy to access within ourselves and a clear outward sign of displeasure, we often use it to communicate when it’s inappropriate or muddles the message.
Anger is an intense emotion you feel when something has gone wrong or someone has wronged you. It is typically characterized by feelings of stress, frustration, and irritation. Everyone feels anger from time to time. It’s a perfectly normal response to frustrating or difficult situations. – Verywellmind.com
Anger can hide many emotions:
- hurt
- embarrassment
- shame
- guilt
- anxiety and fear
- confusion
- disgust
- panic
- vulnerability
- sadness
- disappointment
This applies to feelings of insecurity, inferiority, incompleteness or being damaged, as well. It can also be a response to more complex experiences, like feeling dismissed, disrespected, or losing control, choice or autonomy in your life.
Anger can also emerge in response to physical stimuli, like pain, suffering, weakness, fatigue, instability, and more.
Read this next: Why Letting Go of Toxic People Will Keep You Sane
Healthy Ways to Express Anger
Anger gets a bad rap, but it’s actually a normal emotion that can be helpful when handled right.
Well-managed anger can be a useful emotion that motivates you to make positive changes. The trick isn’t to stuff it down or explode – it’s learning healthier ways to work with it.
Why Healthy Anger Expression Helps
Research shows that people who learn to handle anger mindfully feel better overall.
Across experimental studies, mindfulness significantly reduced anger and aggression, with medium-to-large effect sizes. One study even found that people dealing with chronic pain had a significant reduction of anger (trait) levels, internal expression of anger, state anxiety, and depression when they learned better management skills.
Simple Ways to Handle Anger Healthily
Notice it happening – Instead of getting swept away, try to catch yourself thinking “I’m getting angry right now.” This pause gives you choices.
Move your body – Go for a walk, do jumping jacks, or take some deep breaths. Anger creates physical energy that needs somewhere to go.
Say what you need – Instead of attacking or staying silent, try “I feel frustrated when…” or “I need…”
Write it out – Scribbling down your thoughts can help you figure out what’s really bothering you underneath the anger.
Use it as information – Ask yourself: “What is this anger telling me? What needs to change?”
Talk to someone – A friend, family member, or therapist can help you work through what’s really going on.
Appropriate Anger
Anger can harm relationships, opportunities and people.
However, sometimes it’s the correct emotion to have and can teach you to value and believe in yourself.
Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done. – Ang Lee, Film Director
Righteous anger is necessary to defend your honor and right to happiness in the face of a toxic family, partner or community.
When those around you try to break your spirit, crush your self-esteem, and wither your self-worth, you can use anger to fight for the life you deserve.
You don’t need to scream or slander anyone when they attempt to manipulate you with guilt or shame, or gaslight you into being the selfish or negative person in the situation.
Don’t let anyone scapegoat you into being the problem when you’re not.
You can stand up for yourself, demand consideration, compassion and respect, establish and enforce boundaries, and express your wants and needs, along with consequences for failing to live by your rules.
Reduce or eliminate contact with anyone who doesn’t like having to treat you well!
Excessive Anger
Feelings of anger are natural, and under normal circumstances it’s a healthy reaction.
Excessive anger, however, indicates a problem and can become toxic to the person feeling it and the target of their attacks.
The chronic stress of experiencing excessive anger, or dealing with someone else’s, can have a drastic negative effect on your body and your mental health. The overlong release of stress hormones harm our internal organs and can even change the structure and function of our brains.
A person’s ability to reason, think critically, judge appropriately, predict consequences, communicate clearly, and maintain emotional control often lapse in a fit of anger.
Over time, the way a person thinks and feels adapts to constant frustration and the threshold over which anger bubbles up plummets.
Soon, being angry becomes not only the default response to any situation. It devolves into a personality trait and is constantly present, despite having potentially pleasant experiences.
Reaching Out for Help
If any of this sounds familiar, help is available.
Reaching out to a therapist, counselor, or a mental health service can help you understand and work through underlying stress or anger management issues you may be struggling with yourself – or if you’re dealing with an excessively angry person in your life.
For immediate assistance, especially if your safety is at risk, contact your local emergency services (911 in the US).
For extra support, please look at our list: Your Go-To Mental Health Resources: Here When You Need a Helping Hand
The Bottom Line on Anger
It’s completely healthy to experience anger. The key is that healthy people are able to suppress it before they act on it.
The goal isn’t to become a Zen master who never gets mad – it’s to learn to work with anger in ways that help rather than hurt you and your relationships.
When you handle anger constructively, it can actually motivate positive changes in your life instead of just creating more problems.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published Sep 3, 2021 and has been updated to improve reader experience.
Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels
