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How to Manage Your Anger!

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New research suggests acting out is bad for your health

DR. SAN DIEGO

You’ve seen the tradition at Jewish weddings where, right after becoming “man and wife,” the groom smashes a glass with his foot. But paying someone to break an entire set of stemware when he’s spitting mad with his wife?

Are you angry at the current economy that has left you no longer able to afford a $4 latte? Well, if you live in America’s Finest City, you can spend $35 instead, smash some dinnerware or bric-a-brac, and feel better! Brilliant! Anger is, for sure, the emotion of the moment. While depression and anxiety used to be the most common reasons people came to see me for psychotherapy, today it’s clearly hostility.

Psychotherapy for anger management issues? Not when you can have a “cathartic experience” visiting Sarah Lavely’s Smash Shack on Sixth Avenue, and smash dinner plates, wine glasses, intricately lined sashimi plates, brightly colored vases and goblets. Well, they do require you to be at least 48 inches tall, and kids under 18 require a parent.

Of course those who are so inclined to ignore current scientific data about effective anger management and prefer instead to “just go nuts” can simply order up objects from Sarah’s menu to break, smash and destroy in their very own specially soundproofed "destruction room." Then, outfitted in coveralls, boots, gloves and a helmet, fun-loving “rageaholics” stand behind a chest-high barrier and hurl breakables, often personally inscribed with the names of former spouses, bosses, neighbors, government officials and the like, at a stainless steel-covered wall.

Sarah and her partner, Ed King, donate all the broken glass to schools and art programs throughout San Diego. Hmmm, with the recent severe budget slashes the school board has done, are there any arts programs left in our schools? Maybe with all that slicing and dicing school officials have done, they no longer have the need to smash Sarah’s “House Special” for $35, billed as the “Smashing staple and all-time favorite, delicious and filling” (10 plate refills for $20).

Sarah is no “Sarah-come-lately” to the sort of nutty smash-for-cash business. Since she was a child, she’s admittedly been destroying everything from Christmas decorations and potted plants to telephones and windows. When her husband left her after a dozen years of marriage, she found breaking his things on the driveway of their New Hampshire home to be freeing and very cathartic.

So, what is anger? Simply said, it is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, Ph.D., a highly respected psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. Like other emotions, anger carries physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.

The idea that it's important and healthy to vent your anger in some way has been around for a long time. Aristotle and Freud were fans. In America, the idea really exploded in the late-1960s and ’70s. There was primal scream therapy, “Vesuvius Hour,” and a whole bunch of other individual therapies based on the common-sense idea that it’s good to let it all hang out if it’s all building up inside. Even businesses instituted T-groups — where people were encouraged to speak absolutely honestly with each other about their feelings, no holds barred.

But now the pendulum has swung. Research has demonstrated that there are biochemical changes in our bodies when we rage, use profanity or pound things. Those of us who do rage have more health problems than people who practice containing their anger or expressing it in healthy ways. The popular psychological theories that suggested we should express anger in any way, just to get it out for mental and physical health reasons, have been proven false when put under the microscope of scientific research. The more we scream and yell, the worse our health gets, the more prone we are to heart attacks and the worse our rage problem becomes.

Psychology professor Jeffrey Lohr of the University of Arkansas said in an NPR radio interview that “decades of research on cathartic anger — the theory that actively expressing your anger can reduce or relieve the feeling — has produced a clear conclusion ... breaking dishes doesn't reduce subsequent anger expression," he says. "That, the research shows clearly." It can leave you feeling relieved but may not leave your anger issues resolved.

In fact, the research very clearly shows that the more you get angry, the angrier you get. "Letting it rip" with anger actually escalates anger and aggression and does nothing to help you (or the person you're angry with) resolve the situation.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling angry — it’s just a normal emotion. The issue is how we express it. Anger is energy and strength you can use for powerful action. Sarah’s Smash Shack is a fun place for many, even temporarily therapeutic. However, while catharsis can reduce some pent-up pressure, at the end of the day unless you really solve the basis of your anger, your boss is still your boss, although you had a fun time breaking 10 shot glasses (“minus the shame”) for $10. “For every minute you remain angry, you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind,” according to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In real anger management, we attempt to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that your anger causes. After all, you can’t change other people — you can only learn to control your own reactions. And that’s difficult enough for many.

Relax. Think about the person or situation differently. Solve the problem once and for all. Exercise. Communicate more effectively. Use humor. Change your surroundings. Choose peace over truth (!).

When all else fails, sure, visit Sarah’s Smash Shack, break a few vases, feel better ... and then return to “go” and relax, think about the situation differently, solve the problem, exercise, communicate, use humor, change your surroundings ... and choose peace over truth.

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. –Chinese Proverb

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