Being angry is a very common thing in today’s society now. Anger can be a positive and useful emotion, if it is expressed appropriately. But it has its health implications if one is chronically being angry and unable to keep it under control.

Scientifically, anger triggers the fight-or-flight response in the body. With that, stress hormones flood the body and heighten the risk of inflammation in the body. Under this kind of stressful response, the brain shunts blood away from the gut towards the muscles in preparation for physical exertion. The result: headaches, insomnia, digestion problems, depression and anxiety, skin problems such as eczema, heart attack and stroke.

In Traditional Medicines, anger is an emotion linked to Liver and Gall Bladder. Thus being in a chronically angry state will hurt the Liver and Gall Bladder, resulting in issues such as fatty liver, cholesterol, gall stones. The energy from anger can affect not just the organs related, but the body parts and structures along the way of the Liver and Gall Bladder meridians. These include breasts, throat, reproductive organs. Therefore, being angry constantly and uncontrollably is one of the root problems for cancers at the above body parts, thyroid problems, cysts and fibroids, reduced libido, infertility and miscarriages etc.

Managing anger is the key to regain your power back from being pulled along by this emotion. But what is the psychology behind being angry and how can you change your way of looking at it when someone got angry at you or you get angry at others?

When people throw anger at you: It’s never about you

The first reaction when someone throws their temper at us is that we get hurt and become angry as well. And then usually a fight will pick up after that. Or some will just suppress it and hold our reactive anger towards the temper-thrower within us, only to blast it out later or at others who are usually closer and dearer to us. It will then kind of set off a chain reaction where this negative energy just ripples on and on, which is absolutely undesirable.

The key thing here is: the one throwing the anger is not targeting at you. They are coming from a place where they need the right reaction from the situation. Getting angry is in fact just a coping mechanism in their desperation to get things the way they want it to be.

do-not-take-it-personal — So don’t take it personal.

It is always about them, not about you.

When you throw temper at others: You are not angry, you are in fear

So if we switch roles and that now you are the angry person, you may think you are just losing it and finding outlets to let off the steam inside you. But being angry is not simply just experiencing the emotion and fire burning in you. On a deeper level, it stems from unconscious fear. Fear that you are not getting the results you needed.

fear-anger-lack — It actually comes from a place of lack, of worry, of the belief that you need certain things, if not you cannot be happy.

It is in fact a false belief and illusion. Because everyone of us is whole and complete and fine just the way we are, but we are domesticated and deluded into thinking we need something to make us perfect.