Solution Oriented Strategies

The Anatomy of Anger and Frustration

Adrenalin is the fight or flight mechanism to enable you to either use aggression to overcome a perceived threat or produce fear to stimulate you to escape a perceived threat.

One key to anger management is to ask yourself in what ways these perceived threats are actually going to threaten you and what practical steps you can take to remove the fear or threat they stimulate inside of you.

There are plenty of good reasons for changing your perceptions. Firstly, your health will improve because adrenalin production also has the side effect of suppressing immune response and secondly, because you will feel better psychologically as well as emotionally.

Here is a summary of the effects of adrenalin on your physiology:

Common Causes of Anger

Stupid inanimate objects often cause anger: mislaid keys, a car that does not start, a broken zipper, a cell phone battery that is dead, a computer that crashes.

Special aversions also can stimulate reactivity: people who pick their noses, sticky fingers, dandruff, Clinton, Bush.

Injustice leads people to anger: protests of all kinds come into this category.

Stupidity often enrages people who become its victims.

Insults result in anger as well as fear.

Cheaters are often disliked and to be a victim of a cheater often causes anger.

Bootlickers generally stimulate contempt in others who refuse to pander to powerful individuals.

Condescension can feel unjust, belittling and patronizing to its targets resulting in protest feelings of anger.

Verbal or physical abuse often intimidates. Victims may cower in the face of abuse but nevertheless feel extraordinarily angry to be treated abusively. Fear may prevent this anger being expressed so that further abuse is avoided.