By Qistina Kamal
Feeling a tad bit annoyed with other people? Feeling stressed out about a certain situation?
Surely, you feel the undeniably irresistible urge to vent out in a fit of rage and anger? Well, dont indulge yourself of that desire. Anger is one of the normal human emotions that we express frequently. Anger is indeed a very powerful emotion as it can affect our mind, health and even actions.
Furthermore, anger is our body’s biologically programmed way of œfight-or-flight reflex to a perceived threat. Unfortunately, this autonomous reflex is 99% of the time unnecessary in this modern day and age. According to Peter McWilliams, author of You Cant Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought: A Book for People with Any Life-Threatening Illness”Including Life, this œfight-or-flight reflex is actually killing us.
When anger kicks in during the œfight-or-flight reflex, our body readies itself for immediate physical action. Thus, putting any bodily function not directly related to fighting or fleeing on hold such as cell production, body maintenance, healing, immunological defences, assimilation, circulation and digestion.
Affirming to the aforementioned statement by Peter McWilliams, is that anger can profoundly damage your health, warns Dr. Don Colbert, M.D., author of Deadly Emotions.  This can be seen as various long term health problems as a result of uncontrolled and unmanaged anger.
One of the long term health problems is putting your heart at great risk. Uncontrolled and unmanaged anger tends to have an adverse physical effect on your cardiac health. Chris Aiken, M.D., an instructor in clinical psychiatry at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and director of the Mood Treatment Centre in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, says, œIn the two hours after an angry outburst, the chance of having a heart attack doubles.
Besides that, anger also has an effect to weaken ones immune system. If you find yourself always in an angry mood most of the time, you might fall sick more often. A study by Harvard University scientists found that healthy subjects tried to recall an angry experience from their past and that had caused them to have a six hour dip in levels of antibody immunoglobulin A, which is the body’s first line of defence against external contaminants.
Furthermore, anger could also lead to severe anxiety and depression. Numerous studies have shown that, during a fit of uncontrolled and unmanaged anger, symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition characterised by an excessive and uncontrollable worry that interferes with a persons daily life tend to materialise which further results in severe depression in a prolong time period.
Due to the evident long term dangers of anger, it is highly recommended that you practice several proven anger management techniques and strategies. Exercising regularly is a good way to start your journey of controlling your anger in a positive way as this helps to induce the creation of dopamine, the œfeel good hormone in the body.
Other than that, considering assertiveness training, or learning about techniques of conflict resolution really helps a lot such as œForgiveness Therapy where patients find positive ways to release their rage and the Meridian Tapping Technique/Emotional Freedom Technique (MTT/EFT).
MTT/EFT is done by a combination of mental focus, positivity, and applied pressure on energy points. When these techniques of MTT/EFT are used together, your bodys biochemistry reacts by eliminating the issue such as anger, stress, anxiety, or any other unwanted emotion in a speedily manner.
By practising these anger management techniques and strategies, anger could be turned into a positively empowering emotion if expressed appropriately and be a motivational drive to be a better person. ***