Latest news with #anger
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Is it true that I ‘don't get angry'? Or am I actually dangerously suppressing it?
My friends and I sometimes rank the seven deadly sins in order of personal relevance. For me, 'wrath' always comes last. (I shan't say what's first – too revealing.) Anger doesn't feature in my day-to-day life. I even struggle to feel wrathful when it's appropriate. World events make me fatalistic and depressed; when my gym instructor says to 'let loose' on the ski machine, my effort remains constant. The time I visited a rage room, my main takeaway was that the Metallica song I selected as the soundtrack sounded fantastic on big speakers. This might seem like a good thing: anger is rarely thought of as positive or productive. But is it true that I don't feel anger – or am I just really good at repressing it? 'When people say: 'I never get angry,' what they really mean is they just contain it really well – and often at their own expense,' says Sam Parker, a senior editor at British GQ and author of Good Anger: How Rethinking Rage can Change our Lives. Parker wrote the book 'for people-pleasers, conflict-avoiders and self-improvers', drawing from scientific research, his own experience, and interviews with therapists and other experts. He used to believe that 'the only people with an anger issue were the people who kept getting into fights and arguments, and losing their temper,' Parker tells me. 'I had this idea that I was somehow beyond anger, or it was just of no use to me.' He did struggle with anxiety. And when he hit a rough patch in his 30s, Parker tried yoga, meditation, gratitude journaling and even cold showers. What worked? Boxing. A couple of months in, while letting loose on the bag, Parker was unexpectedly overcome by emotion, enough to wet his eyes. 'For the first time in months I wasn't sad or anxious,' he writes. 'I was furious.' Over time, it dawned on him: 'The more that I recognised anger in myself, talked about it, processed it and eventually acted on it, the more my anxiety went down.' After that epiphany, Parker learned there was a well-established scientific link between anger and anxiety – it just wasn't widely acknowledged. To him, it represented a critical oversight in the mental-health conversation. Anger is as natural as sadness, fear, happiness or disgust – but it's often left out of the picture. In part, it's a language problem, Parker explains. 'In English, we conflate 'anger' with 'aggression' or even 'violence', as though they are the same thing.' But it is an especially challenging emotion to experience and be around. Even psychotherapists may avoid taking on openly angry patients, Parker learned in researching his book. Whether in pop science or academic research, 'across the spectrum, anger is sort of neglected,' he says. Parker wrote Good Anger hoping to reframe the emotion, and help others understand, experience and express it differently. Anger is persistently seen as negative: 'We tend to avoid talking about it altogether until it has boiled over into aggression,' he says. This can compound the shame and stigma. 'A lot of the time, aggressive behaviour is a choice we make,' says Parker. But the emotion itself is legitimate, exists to protect us – and often has something insightful to say. 'We tend to think that anger's telling us something about other people: how unreasonable they are, how they're out to get us, why they're idiots … Far more often, it's pointing us towards an unmet need or event from the past,' he says. When proportionately experienced, anger is not only part of a balanced emotional mix – it can also be 'a real source of determination, vitality and clarity', Parker says, pointing us towards what we value and spurring us on. When he finally acknowledged and began attuning to his latent anger, 'that was when I started to see the real benefits.' Parker's right: it's not really accurate for me to say 'I never get angry.' I just avoid acknowledging it, or name it something more palatable, such as irritation or disappointment. I associate this aversion with my adolescence, when I frequently gave into anger, lashing out at my family and feeling unpleasantly out of control. But, I learn from Parker's book, having been an angry teenager doesn't necessarily make me an angry person. There are in fact two types of anger. Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion 'Trait anger' is inherent and individual, influenced by genetics and environment. Having high trait anger means you're quicker than others to fly off the handle. 'State anger', on the other hand, is temporary, triggered by frustration or a perceived threat. 'No one gets away without having state anger,' says Parker. The question is, how do you typically express it? Anger researchers distinguish between 'anger-out' and 'anger-in': externalising the emotion through physical or verbal aggression, versus striving to contain it and, in doing so, turning it inwards. The former might be more familiar (and harder to ignore), but the 'anger-in' crowd are suffering in silence, Parker says. Such containment is unsustainable and can carry a high personal cost: 'Anger deferred is anger multiplied.' Refusing to acknowledge anger may even make people sick, Parker says, pointing to the deleterious effects of sustained elevated cortisol, the stress hormone. However, not everyone feels equally free to express it. Women and girls are widely socialised to swallow anger and keep the peace; many told Parker their instinctual response to rage was to cry. For those burdened by the 'angry Black woman' stereotype, navigating the emotion is even more fraught. And though boys generally feel more attuned and entitled to anger, 'they're not taught to be curious about what their anger is really about, and what they should do with it,' Parker says. A healthy relationship with anger entails active, open engagement – neither denying its existence nor letting it run the show. For instance, leftwing commentator and author Ash Sarkar told Parker about learning to understand and harness her anger as a self-protective response to racist and sexist attacks. But achieving such presence of mind takes time and practice. The accepted wisdom that anger needs to be released, such as by punching a pillow or primal screaming, has been proven to be of limited psychological benefit, says Parker. More from Why am I like this: I'm an adult. Why do I regress under my parents' roof? I like my own company. But do I spend too much time alone? People say you'll know – but will I regret not having children? A better goal is 'creating a positive, productive association in your body and mind'. That can be achieved through physical movement, as Parker discovered with boxing; other examples are jogging and dancing. Anger can also be channelled creatively through journaling, painting or drawing. Once past the heat of the moment, you can decide with clarity what, if any, action is necessary, Parker says. 'Sometimes you do have to go and have the scary conversation, and say the difficult thing.' Other times, merely acknowledging how you feel is enough to lessen the sting, and help you move on. 'Today, if I feel angry about something, I've trained myself as best I can to think: 'OK, this is information,'' says Parker. Knowing his tendency to bury anger, Parker tries now to stay connected with it. For example, he and his partner have discussed their respective triggers and approaches to arguing. 'What you're really doing is handing each other a map,' he explains, 'so that when conflict does arise, you can find your way out of it a bit quicker.' Curious to learn more about my own terrain, I started by asking myself: if I was angry, what would I be angry about? The question flushes out some long-buried hurts and perceived injustices that I'd pushed from consciousness. None feel like they need to be acted upon, but they feel better for being excavated. I realise that while I've avoided conflict, believing it to be ruinous, the friendships I value most are those where we've already demonstrated that we can disagree, express frustration or argue, and recover. It's a comforting takeaway: wrath might be uncomfortable, but it isn't necessarily a deadly sin. Good Anger: How rethinking rage can change our lives is out in the UK now and published in the US on 19 August Good Anger by Sam Parker (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, £20). 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The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
A moment that changed me: I stepped into the boxing ring – and decades of quiet anger lifted
On meeting me, you would never guess that I used to be an angry person. I'm talkative, sociable and self-possessed – but for nearly 20 years I lived with a quiet fury. It started with my parents, whose strict conservatism restricted everything in my life: what I ate, what I wore, where I went, what I thought. As immigrants from Bangladesh, they believed that control was the best way to protect their daughters, but it suffocated me. I had to fight to go to university – for all the things that men in my community were given as a right. At first, my anger felt ambient – mild and ever-present – but it became something harder, more bitter, when I was pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 24. The marriage lasted days, but the fallout lasted decades. I remember researching a magazine feature years later and speaking to a relationship expert who referenced my 'forced marriage'. I was quick to jump in and say: 'It was arranged; not forced.' She tilted her head gently and said, 'An arranged marriage you did not want?' It was the first time I realised how angry I was. My anger manifested in different ways. I was irritable and snappy with my mother, emotionally guarded in relationships, and fiercely self-sufficient when it came to money. I never again wanted to be in a situation I could not easily escape. I considered therapy, but the cultural context in which I grew up does not sit easily with western techniques. I can't imagine explaining my anger to my mother or expecting some form of apology. Instead, I accepted that anger was something I would just have to live with. Then, in the spring of 2023, I walked into a boxing gym. I had never boxed before but I wanted to try it so that I could depict it accurately in the novel I was writing. I remember standing sheepishly by the ring at Mickey's Boxing Gym in east London while the eponymous Mickey finished his morning class. He noticed me and told me to warm up ahead of our one-to-one session. I had never been in a gym before, let alone a boxing one, and had no idea how to 'warm up'. I retreated around the corner, out of view, and fiddled with my phone instead. As the morning class filtered out, I gingerly returned to the ring. We began with some basic footwork and the fundamental punches: the jab, the cross, the hook. We worked in three-minute 'rounds', punctuated by 30-second breaks, all announced by a digital bell. Midway through the session, we moved on to the pads. Mickey held up two padded mitts and called out different combinations – patterns of punches I had to land on the mitts. As I punched, he called out instructions – 'keep your chin down', 'let me hear you breathe', 'hide behind your shoulder' – and then came the moment that changed things for me. 'Hit harder,' he instructed. I punched. 'Harder!' I punched again, the sweat dripping off me. 'Harder! Use your power!' I punched again with all my strength. 'Let me hear you!' he shouted. I cried out loud as I punched – an ugly, guttural sound, so different to everything I'd been taught. In that moment, I didn't have to be demure, delicate or diplomatic. I could be as fierce and angry as I wanted. I pounded the pads, shouting out with each punch. Over the course of those three minutes, I felt my anger lift: the years, maybe decades, of it. The bell sounded and I crumpled on to the ropes, sweaty and euphoric. I was emotional as I took off my gloves. I felt lighter, freer, unchained from something heavy. I went home and told my partner: 'I think I've finally found my sport.' This was revelatory. South-Asian women are one of the least active demographics in the UK and the idea of finding 'my sport' – and that sport being boxing – felt somehow absurd. The two sessions I had booked for research turned into two years of boxing. As a result, I am much calmer, happier and more patient. Best of all, I no longer dread spending time with my mother. Where once I found it emotionally draining, I now know that an hour in the gym will re-energise me. Boxing has given me a sense of equilibrium that was missing for so much of my life. After decades of battling my anger, I have finally found some peace. The guys at the gym often ask if I'll ever take part in a boxing fight. They say that, after two years of training for three to four sessions a week, with dozens of sparring partners, I'm ready to get in the ring for real. I smile and tell them that I only box for fun. What I don't say is that I've already won the longest fight of my life. What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah is published 19 June
The Sun
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Justin Bieber exposes private texts & admits ‘conflict is part of relationships' as worried fans beg ‘delete this!'
JUSTIN Bieber left fans stunned by sharing a private conversation on Instagram after cutting ties with his assistant and bodyguards. Justin, 30, also shared a raw statement about his struggles with anger, healing, and self-worth - sparking concern online. 5 5 The Sorry singer uploaded two screenshots on social media which showed a tense exchange that appeared to mark the end of a relationship. The other person said: 'I'm not used to someone lashing out at me. It's not that I don't see and feel your anger.' A reply in blue said: 'Ouch. This friendship is officially over. 'I will never accept a man calling my anger lashing out. I enjoyed our short lived relationship. I wasn't kidding when I told u I didn't need u as a friend. 'I have good friends. Who will respect these boundaries.' Another screenshot continued: "I will never suppress my emotions for someone. "Conflict is a part of relationship ... If you don't like my anger you don't like me. "My anger is a response To pain I have been thru. "Asking a traumatized person not to be traumatized is simply mean." Shortly afterwards, Justin wrote a statement out on a purple background, and it was even more personal. He captioned the statement with a hand emoji flipping the bird. The star admitted to feeling broken and exhausted, writing: 'People keep telling me to heal… I know I'm broken. I know I have anger issues… I tried to do the work my whole life to be like people who told me I needed to be fixed like them. 'And it just keeps making me more tired and more angry. 'The harder I try to grow, the more focused on myself I am. ' He added: 'Jesus is the only person who keeps me wanting to make my life about others… Honestly I'm exhausted with thinking about myself lately. Aren't you?' The identity of the person in the text exchange remains unknown but the raw posts quickly went viral, with many fans expressing concern. Comments poured in urging the star to 'delete this' while another said: "Justin I love you, but please take a break off social media, so it'd stop triggering you, it's okay to be angry, but stop giving these people the power to trigger you." Another said: "Being traumatized isn't an excuse to treat people like s**t… like what???" The Sun revealed his team has changed dramatically in recent months as he's cut ties with close associates and even lost his longtime personal assistant. He worked with assistant Mateo Caldas, who was also an estate manager, since 2018 - but Mateo has moved on. The star's rep recently hit back at worrying rumors Justin's health has declined, telling TMZ he's in "one of the best places in his life." They said the past year has been "very transformative for him as he ended several close friendships and business relationships that no longer served him." However, Justin has long been open about his struggles. He's credited his Christian faith and his wife, Hailey Bieber, for helping him through dark times. The couple married in 2018 and have been under public scrutiny ever since. While they've often posted about their love, recent cryptic posts — including a plea for prayers from Hailey's father last year— have fuelled speculation about tension behind the scenes. 5 5
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
‘Blocked': Justin Bieber shares angry break-up texts as he ends friendship publicly
It's too late now to say sorry. Justin Bieber vented his frustrations on social media as he shared a confrontational text message exchange with an unidentified friend who accused him of 'lashing out.' 'I will never suppress my emotions for someone,' the pop star wrote, according to the screenshots posted via Instagram Sunday evening. 'Conflict is part of relationship. If you don't like my anger you don't like me.' 'My anger is a response to pain I have been thru [sic],' Bieber continued. 'Asking a traumatised person not to be traumatised is simply mean.' The singer's friend then responded, 'I'm not used to someone lashing out at me. It's not that I don't see and feel your anger.' Bieber fired back, 'Ouch. This friendship is officially over. I will never accept a man calling my anger lashing out.' Though the Grammy winner, 31, said he enjoyed their 'short-lived relationship,' he went on the blast the unnamed text recipient. 'I wasn't kidding when I told u I didn't need u as a friend,' Bieber said, pointing out that he has 'good friends who will respect [his] boundaries.' 'This confirms u were the p—y I always thought u were,' he added. The hitmaker further elaborated on his current state of mind as he shared the text conversation on his Instagram Story. 'Quit asking me if I'm okay,' he wrote on top. 'Quit asking me how I'm doing. I don't do that to you because I know how hard life is for all of us. 'It's hard. Letss [sic] encourage our people not project our insecurities onto one another.' Bieber concluded, 'Your concern doesn't come off as care. It's just oppressive weirdo.' The singer's PSA came days after he angrily confronted paparazzi who were waiting for him outside Soho House Malibu on Thursday night. 'Not me today bro,' Bieber told the shutterbugs while holding his arm over his face. 'How do you think it's going with you in my f–king face? Get out of my f–king face!'
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
How a snap of your dog on your desk can reduce anger and calm an office spat
As man's best friend, dogs have long been known to have a calming influence on their owners. But just having a picture of your pooch on your desk may be enough to reduce anger – and even violence - in the workplace by one third, scientists have found. A simple photograph of a cute pet dampens aggression and make fisticuffs with co-workers less likely. It is not clear whether the image itself has the pacifying effect, or whether those who choose to have a picture of their pet at work are less likely to be angry and aggressive more generally. But previous research has shown that owning a dog can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and increase levels of the so-called 'cuddle hormone', oxytocin. One theory put forward by the researchers is that an image of a cute pooch dampens down the body's fight or flight response when faced with threatening situations. 'These results provide the first empirical evidence that the presence of dogs decreases anger and aggression in humans,' said the researchers, from the State University of New York. 'Images of one's pet dog could be used to help improve cooperation among co-workers in the workplace and help them deal with conflict and anger in healthier and more socially acceptable ways. Having a picture of your pooch on your desk may be enough to reduce anger – and even violence - in the workplace by one third, scientists have found 'This could lead to lower employee turnover, which could save employers time and money by not having to consistently hire new employees when previous employees resign due to interpersonal conflict and negative emotions. 'The benefits to employees, co-workers, and employers could be substantial.' The research involved 400 people, who were either exposed to noise designed to provoke anger, or told they had been insulted at work. Those with pictures of their pet in the office were one third less angry when faced with these scenarios, and two thirds less likely to want to resort to physical harm in retaliation for an insult. But writing in the journal Anthrozoös, the researchers cautioned that it may not work with dogs associated with aggression, such as 'chow chows or pit bulls'.
