People who live with pains and chronic pains may be angry a lot of the time. Their anger may even be justified in this context, as they constantly feel terrible throughout their day and might let it out at one moment or another. However, its not a good thing. Recent scientific studies show that how we behave emotionally can impact our pain positively or negatively. In this article, we will discuss how anger can amplify your pain, how the anger and pain cycle works, and seven tips that will help you calm down when youre angry. Lets get started.

How Does Anger Amplify Pain?

When you become angry at something, whether it be your pain, road rage, or some other situation, your brain starts releasing adrenaline, which sends your body into hyperactive and hypersensitive mode. Being angry for a long time drains your energy, causing your pain to flare up. Being angry also releases the stress chemicals in your brain called cortisol. When cortisol levels stay up for long periods of time, they can harm your cognitive function and lead to other problems like stressing about situations, being anxious, and maybe even temporary depression.

The Anger And Pain Cycle

If your anger develops from your chronic pains and being angry about your situation, youre going to trigger the stress chemicals (cortisol) in your brain. When that keeps happening for a long time, your pain and inflammation get worse, causing you to become even more angry. And when you get more enraged, you feel more pain. To stop this cycle, you need to calm down your anger. But is repressing your anger the answer? Well, not quite. Lets find out why.

Why Repressing Your Anger Is A Bad Idea

Were often told to just deal with our emotions. Feel sad, depressed, or angry? Society says to stay silent and deal with it on your own, repress your feelings, and hide them well. People who can hide their emotions well are admired in society. However, constantly repressing your emotions and not letting them out is bad for your brain in the long term. Studies point to the fact that suppressing your anger can be equally harmful to your pain as expressing it.

Is letting anger out the answer?

Repressing your anger can cause you more pain in the long run because youre trying to absorb the emotion rather than letting it out. But letting your anger out on others is not the answer either. You dont want to pass your negative emotions on to someone else. So, the question is, what else should you do? The first step to solving anger issues is to start being self-aware and aware of moments when you're angry. Becoming self-aware of your emotions helps you detach your brain from emotions and see them as passing feelings and thoughts, with you being the observer. Its like staring at a river with flowing water; you just observe your emotions and mental state instead of acting upon it. Your thoughts and emotions do not define you or your behavior unless you let them take over you.

7 Tips To Help Calm Down Your Anger

Now that weve started with the first step of becoming self-aware, its time to explore some other tips that may help with managing anger effectively. Here is a list of 7 tips to help you calm down your anger.

Journalling

Journaling your daily activities and thoughts with pen and paper can help you express your anger and other emotions and let them out in a healthy way. Journaling helps you not to bottle up your feelings inside.

Talk to your loved ones

We as humans have our social needs. Socializing and talking to friends and family can be a healthy way to calm down your anger and vent it out. Even if youre not talking to your loved ones in person, it can be good to just call them or even communicate via text if possible.

Meditate

Meditating helps you let your anger out through breathing patterns. Just sit back, relax, and breathe in and out at a constant, steady pace. Stop focusing on your thoughts and pay attention to your breath and the sounds coming from around. Dont forget to close and open your eyes as you feel like.

Forgive and let go

One thing that helps relieve anger is forgiving people who are responsible for making you angry. Even if theyre not people, lets say youre angry at an object; its important to let it go. If you let these things bother you, youll only bother yourself.

Stop taking the situation seriously

This tip applies to everyone, no matter the situation. Taking things seriously can cause you to get stressed and anxious. Sooner than later, stress and anxiety can turn into pain without you even knowing whats happening. So, its important to take things easy and look at all matters from a non-serious point of view.

Play with fidget toys

Fidget toys like fidget spinners, cubes, switches, stress balls, etc., are known to calm down stress, anxiety, depression, and anger issues. They can help you let out your anger in a healthy way. You can try all of them and see which one you like fidgeting with the most.

Do a light workout

Workouts can help you let your anger emotions out in a healthy way. A light workout that involves calisthenics, like push-ups, pull-ups, jogging, running, and walking, can help your brain calm down and release the feel-good chemicals known as endorphins.

Conclusion

Being angry because of your pain can send you into a never-ending cycle of feeling pain and getting angry non-stop. But you cant let your anger out on others or repress it inside your body. This article discussed the harmful effects anger can have on your pain and body and how to let your emotions out in a healthy way. The seven tips mentioned above in the article will help you let out anger in the right way.