What To Do About Anger

“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way -- that is not easy.”
- Aristotle

There’s nothing easy about anger. Artistotle lived in 367 A.D. and things haven’t changed much. Learning what to do “about anger” is one of the great life tasks. Hostility—constant, pervasive anger—is one of the most detrimental things for your health there is. It compromises your immune system, taxes your cardiovascular system, and drives people away, which exacerbates the situation because isolation is more detrimental to your health than high blood pressure, obesity, or smoking.

It has been a fad that expressing anger was healthy, but a growing body of scientific evidence shows that expressing it is just as bad for our health as repressing it. And common sense tells us that we don’t like to be around the anger of someone else; it’s a toxic environment.

Studies show that telling “war stories” stresses our bodies just as if the thing were happening again right now. Our brains don’t know the difference between real and imagined, past or present. The heart pounds, blood pressure goes up … you know this. Pay attention to it! Learn to say “Don’t get me started,” and then refuse to do it.

We can’t help having it, but what are we to do?

Increase your emotional intelligence, learn meditation, exercise, breathe, learn optimism, have a pet, get rid of the negative people in your life, learn to self-soothe. The answers are simple, and not easy, but learning to manage your anger can be a matter of life and death.