3 Effective Ways to Cope with Anger

As the year comes to an end, I thought it would be a good time to share with you, The Female Brief community, some of my reflections on 2021. As a psychologist, working through the prolonged effects of a global pandemic, it certainly has been an intense year. For many, a sense of anger has been pervasive. Anger is a difficult emotion to grapple with, and much less talked about than anxiety or depression. I hope to share with you an honest account of what 2021 has been like, and 3 effective ways to cope with anger that I practiced throughout the year.

The (Angry) Year That Was

There were many things to be angry about in 2021. Living in lockdown, laws changing overnight, businesses struggling, a botched vaccine rollout, cancelled plans and widespread Covid, just to name a few. All of these issues affected me strongly. Not only was I living through them, but also through my job I was hearing every day about how people were struggling and suffering. There was a feeling of anger in the air- which made sense given the injustice of living through a pandemic.

Anger is a basic emotion, and serves a purpose in human functioning. From an evolutionary perspective, anger would have protected our species from threats in the environment. Anger aids the ‘fight’ function in the fight-flight survival mechanism, keeping us safe. In modern terms, we feel anger when we have been wronged or hurt in some way. Anger signals that something negative has happened and the need to defend ourselves or problem solve. 

While anger is an important emotion, it can also get in the way of our lives. Living with anger can have negative health impacts (like increased blood pressure and lower immunity) as well as social impacts (conflicts in relationships) and emotional impacts (poor decision making). There were many times in 2021 that I felt angry. At times, I didn’t handle my anger well, becoming reactive, bitter or hopeless. However, I also learnt some effective strategies to manage my anger, helping me process this emotion and leave it behind in 2021. Here are 3 effective ways to cope with anger.

1. A Structured Routine

A big source of my anger during 2021 was the feeling of lack of control over my life. Living in a restricted zone, with very little freedom, was incredibly frustrating. However, given that this situation was completely out of my hands, I knew that I had to find a way to cope and process my anger. I decided to create a structured routine for my life, maximising on the few freedoms that I had. I began every day by going for a run, which helped me release some ‘stress chemicals’ and feel much calmer. Having a daily takeaway coffee outing also gave me something small to look forward to. I also tried to start and finish work at set times and switch off during my lunch break by closing the laptop and sitting out on my balcony.

These routines distracted me from feeling angry and helped me regain a sense of control. I began to feel more peaceful and even motivated to get up every day. Instead of staying angry about what was beyond my control, I refocused my attention on what I could do, and committed to making some positive changes with my life.

2. Creating Connections

Anger is quite an isolating emotion. It distances us from other people, which is both protective (keeps us safe) but also lonely, especially if we stay angry for a long time. As someone who is very social, and family-oriented, being separated from my loved ones was another source of my anger during 2021. However, I realised that by staying angry, I was only isolating myself more from those I cared about. So, I made a conscious decision to stay connected, especially during the lockdown period. I made the effort to check-in on friends, organise Zoom chats, meet up with friends and acquaintances locally, let go of expectations of others (read here) and reach out to people I hadn’t spoken to in a while. By creating and nurturing connections in my life, this created a space for more positive feelings to come through, like a sense of love and belonging. And despite not seeing many people this year, many of my relationships are stronger than they have ever been.

3. Gratitude 

Finally, I found that gratitude was a really effective way of relieving my anger. While anger makes us focus on what is wrong or unfair, gratitude makes us focus on what we have to be thankful for. Thanks to the negativity bias (read here) our attention is wired towards things that are wrong in our environment. So, it takes some conscious effort to refocus our attention on what is good around us. Some simple ways I practiced gratitude included journalling, telling myself three things I’m thankful for before going to bed, soaking up as much sun as possible and finding ways to help or care for people in my life who I’ve been thankful for this year. Gratitude has an amazing power to shift our mindset from scarcity (what we lack) to abundance (what we have). And from a place of abundance, we have less anger and more appreciation for our lives.

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So those are 3 effective ways to cope with anger that helped me get through 2021. I hope that if you are also struggling with anger, these strategies help you to leave behind some of those negative feels from 2021 and bring in more peace, love and abundance in the New Year. See you then!