Many times we are not aware of our emotions and how they control us until it is too late. Many times it can even be said that we regret behaviors which have been driven by an emotion.
Sometimes it may be happiness that drives us to do something not dangerous, but if it is anger and annoyance that controls us, it can become a big problem.
Throughout this Psychology-Online article, we want to show you how the emotion of anger and anger can control you to levels that make you act aggressively and, at the same time, we also intend to show you the necessary guidelines so that you can control anger attacks.
Why can’t I control my anger?
First, in order to answer this question, we must correctly identify the emotion of anger and, to do so, we must know its definition. According to Nieto (2008), the gonna is described as a primary emotion which occurs when an organism is blocked in the consequence of a goal or in obtaining or satisfying a need.
At the same time, we also have to differentiate between the concepts experience of anger and expression of anger, where the first of them refers to those subjective processes and related emotions, which are characterized by an attitude of hostility on the part of the person who presents them. While the expression of anger refers to the aggressive behavior caused by the episode of anger itself.
This expression of anger is related to the coping styles that each person has when faced with the event that triggers it. If you have problems controlling your anger, you most likely have an external coping style, where you have the need to express your anger through aggressive behaviors, whether verbal or physical.
In the following article you will find more information about .
Why when I get angry I lose control
As you can read in some of our other articles on personality, each of us is unique and individual. Therefore, trying to give an exact and collective explanation of the reasons why we express ourselves in one way or another is practically impossible.
Despite this, it is known as a result of various studies such as that of Shaffer (2002) that personality, the way we express emotions and our behavior, is determined by both internal factors (in other words, genetic factors) and external or environmental factors. Here you will find more information about the .
To better understand this statement I give you an example. If from a young age your genetic predisposition makes you more prone to getting angry, you will tend to show angry and angry attitudes even in situations which you could resolve without getting angry. And if, in addition, in your home you have seen that, when faced with a problem that causes anger, it provokes aggressive behavior in one of your parents, this environmental factor will make you more inclined to behave in the same way when you get angry.
This control of emotions and feelings is carried out by a nucleus called the amygdala. The amygdala, apart from producing the emotional reactionsis also responsible for inhibiting behaviors thanks to its connection with the frontal lobe.
The amygdala is a brain structure which allows people to choose the correct strategies when faced with the stimuli that surround us and therefore the emotions that these stimuli arouse in us. That is why, if a situation is threatening For us, the amygdala prompts us to have fight or flight behaviors. However, and this is when aggressive behaviors are created, if a person has damage to the amygdala, this can lead to extremely aggressive reactions or even a total loss of the sensation of fear, causing the person to put their life at risk. physical integrity.
In turn, if your connection with the frontal lobe is damaged, the person will have many difficulties when it comes to inhibit behaviors, which again can end up producing a lack of control and extreme aggressiveness. For example, if a situation provokes the emotion of anger in someone with the frontal lobe and, as a result of anger, they want to punch, there will be nothing in their brain that will inhibit the behavior they want to perform and in the end, they will end up doing the same thing. bang.
Why when I get angry I want to break things
A very common way of expressing the emotion of anger is through aggressive behaviors, which are behaviors directed toward a target, whether it is a person or object, which results in some damage.
Some of the people who tend to express their anger in this way indicate their increasing need to break things around them when they feel angry and angry.
A possible explanation for this behavior is a need in the individual to release tension that his body accumulates during the state of anger and so, instead of acting aggressively towards a physical person, he decides to do it against an object, which he knows that, even if it breaks, it will not lead to physical consequences in a future. human being.
However, there are other more adaptive strategies for , as well as .
How to control anger and aggression
Anger control is highly dependent on each person’s coping style. These can be the external one (already explained before), the internal one, in which the person tries to suppress the feelings of anger and fury, but without being able to reduce their level of anger, and, finally, that style in which the person seeks to implement strategies to reduce the intensity of anger and find a solution to the situation that has given rise to anger. This is considered the most appropriate, since in this way, the person eliminates any trace of the emotion of anger.
There is a large number of psychological techniques used to control angerHowever, here I am going to describe the one proposed by Deffenbacher (1994) which is based on a series of steps to follow:
- Increase awareness of the deficit. The first step is always to become aware. The person must develop adequate sensitivity to their anger response, in order to begin to control it as soon as possible.
- Disrupt the development of the anger response. Provide strategies, such as self-instructions or delaying the emotional response, to cut off the development of the emotion of anger.
- Relaxation. When you feel anger overcome you, breathe, taking large breaths of air and releasing them slowly. With each breath, focus on a muscle and try to feel how it relaxes as a result of breathing. Here you can see.
- Modify thoughts that can make you react aggressively as a result of the emotion of anger. Many times this aggressive attitude is triggered by some things, such as catastrophic thoughts, overgeneralizations, interpretations of the ideas and thoughts of others, which can make us become excessively angry. Therefore, learning to identify and modify them can help us when controlling aggressive behavior.
- The problem solving technique It will help you learn to control anger, because usually, when we are presented with a problem, if we are aware of the existence of a solution, this will not create anger or anxiety. Therefore, if we are aware of our ability to control situations and provide a solution, we will also be able to control our anger. In the following article you will find the.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Why when I get angry I can’t control myselfwe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- Deffenbacher, JL, Thwaites, GA, Wallace, TL, & Oetting, ER (1994). Social skills and cognitive-relaxation approaches to general anger reduction. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 41(3), 386.
- Nieto, M. Á. P., Delgado, MMR, & León, L. (2008). Approaches to the emotion of anger: from conceptualization to psychological intervention. REME, 11(28), 5.
- Shaffer, DR, & del Barrio Martínez, C. (2002). social development and personality. Madrid: Thomson.