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By Mayo Clinic staffImproving your ability to manage anger has a number of benefits. You'll feel as if you have more control when life's challenges turn up the heat. Knowing how to express yourself assertively means you won't feel frustrated because you feel that you need to "hold in" your anger to avoid offending someone.
Anger management can help you:
- Communicate your needs. Learn how to recognize and talk about things that frustrate you, rather than letting your anger flare up. Knowing how to express yourself can help you avoid impulsive and hurtful words or actions, resolve conflicts, and maintain positive relationships.
- Maintain better health. The stress caused by ongoing angry feelings can increase your risk of health problems, including headaches, sleep problems, digestive problems, heart problems and high blood pressure.
- Prevent psychological problems linked to anger, which can include depression, problems at work and troubled relationships.
- Use your frustration to get things done. Anger expressed inappropriately can make it difficult for you to think clearly, and may result in poor judgment. You'll learn to use feelings of frustration and anger as motivators to work harder and take positive action.
- Help avoid addictive escapes. It's common for people who feel chronically angry to turn to alcohol, drugs or food. Rather than using alcohol, drugs or food to dull anger, you can use anger management techniques to keep your cool and your control.
- Barbara Woodward Lips Patient Education Center. Understanding anger. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2004.
- Controlling anger — before it controls you. American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/topics/anger/control.aspx. Accessed April 12, 2011.
- Scott CL, et al. Psychotherapeutic approaches to treating chronic aggression. In: Hales RE, et al. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com/content.aspx?aID=319794&searchStr=aggressive+behavior. Accessed April 12, 2011.
- Reilly PM, et al. Anger management for substance abuse and mental health clients: A cognitive behavioral therapy manual. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://store.samhsa.gov/product/SMA08-4213. Accessed April 12, 2011.
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