Anger and Mental Health

Anger is most closely associated with anxiety. People who have anger management problems are often highly anxious and stressed. They are often highly functioning individuals who expect a lot from themselves and a lot from those whom they surround themselves with. Anger management problems are a natural by-product of their life. A lot of these people have very high levels of either generalized anxiety or social anxiety. These 2 types of anxiety are contributing to their anger management problems.

Its much easier for these people, usually men, to say that, "I've got anger management problems," than to say that, "I suffer from social or generalized anxiety." People with social anxiety find it very difficult to be in public places, for example, shopping centers, where there's going to be a lot of other people around and where an easy exit is not always present. For example, in a train when commuting between home and work, when the train is in motion, they are not able to exit the train until the next stop. People with generalized anxiety have a low resilience to stressful situations in their life. Part of their anxious response to these situations is to get angry.

Another mental condition associated with anger is depression. Some experts believe that depression will affect 1 out of 5 people, at any 1 point in time. Eighty percent of people will suffer depression at 1 point in their life. So it is a very, very common mental health condition. Depression can be a very frustrating condition to have, because there is no obvious solution to it. This is especially frustrating for Type A, goal-driven personalities who often suffer from anger problems in the first place.

There's no solution to it. No obvious solution to it. They can't go for a run, or drink some beer, drink some alcohol, or eat some food or talk to someone about it. Depression is a lot more complex than that. A common response to depression and anger is to take frustration out on others. Again, it's very important that people recognise depression for what it is, and get it diagnosed and treated.

Anger Management Is An Inability to Handle Negative Emotions
Think back to your life now. What do you do whenever you have a negative emotion? For example, when you are down or anxious or stressed what do you do? Do you sit alone quietly and deal with it in your own time? Or do you try to get rid of it through alcohol, exercise, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, drugs, smoking, talking to friends or family?

Most people will do the latter, because we've never been taught how to deal with our negative emotions. Unfortunately for most people, our emotions are like a roller coaster. It goes up when we have strong, positive emotions. It plateaus when we have neutral emotions. It dips when we have negative emotions for a certain period of time, and then the cycle continues.
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