6 Reasons Why Controlling Anger is a Great Idea

Getting angry is often not a choice that we consciously make. Angry thoughts and feelings can bubble up quite easily as we deal with relationship woes, financial stress, work deadlines, or even big challenges like a global pandemic. While those angry thoughts and feelings may come unbidden, we do have a choice of what we do with those feelings and thoughts. Controlling anger is a choice.

God has a plan for us, and that includes what we do with our emotions and thoughts. How we feel and what we think affects what we do. Instead of letting anger take the steering wheel, God instead wants patience, kindness, and goodness to play a dominant role in our lives. We can grow in these virtues as we learn to rein anger in and express it in constructive ways.

An apology for anger

There is a good reason for keeping a handle on your anger. However, to have a healthy relationship with anger, it’s important to recognize the positive function that anger plays in our lives. Yes, anger does have a constructive role to play, and we ought to acknowledge that.

Anger often manifests in unhelpful forms such as road rage, unhinged tantrums, and rants on social media. We are right to shun these unbridled expressions of anger because they are destructive, often denigrating fellow human beings and leaving wreckage in their wake.

Destructive expressions of anger don’t tell the whole story about anger. Anger does have a positive function in our lives, and that includes warning us when our boundaries have been violated. We can also experience anger when we witness injustice, whether toward ourselves or another person, and anger moves us to do something about it. In this way, anger propels us toward constructive action to fix a broken situation.

It’s important to make this apology for anger because anger quite often gets a bad rap. God made us complex beings with the capacity for anger, and it’s good for us to honor that and value the place of anger in our lives.

Reasons for controlling anger

Anger has a place in our lives, but even with good things, our best intentions don’t always win out. We get angered easily, and we lose control over our reactions as we yield to the impulses our anger unleashes.

A good image that helps us capture what anger is like is fire – it is powerful and capable of being harnessed for good purposes like staying warm or a good barbecue. However, that same fire can, if it’s allowed to rage, destroy everything in its path.

There are many good reasons for controlling anger, and below are a few of them.

To pursue a godly life

The Bible paints many pictures for us of what it looks like to live the life God desires. One way it does this is by contrasting what we do when our lives are controlled by destructive impulses, or our sinful nature, and the beautiful fruit that results when our lives are under the guidance and control of God’s presence, the Holy Spirit.

Our sinful nature erupts in “sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21, NIV). Hatred and fits of rage are a mark of the sinful nature at work.

This is contrasted with what a life that’s under God’s influence looks like: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV). To lead a godly life, one needs to set aside human anger (James 1:19-20), drawing from and keeping in step with God’s Spirit and way of life.

To not lose yourself

Anger can consume you, taking over your decisions and life if you don’t keep a tight rein on it.

In rather colorful language, Frederick Buechner once wrote, “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways, it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

When you’re angry, the last thing on your mind is showing kindness, patience, or empathy for the person that’s angered you. You can lose yourself in your anger, so it’s important to learn to control it so that you retain your freedom to do what is right and good.

To keep your relationships intact

Proverbs 14:17 (NIV) warns us that “A quick-tempered person does foolish things, and the one who devises evil schemes is hated.” We say and do many unwise things in the course of a lifetime.

If you have a quick temper that’s out of control, you’ll say and do many things that you regret, if not immediately after you say them, then soon enough afterward. Many relationships, whether with romantic partners, siblings, work colleagues, or neighbors, are blown apart by the things people do in a fit of anger that goes unchecked.

To stay on the right side of the law

Uncontrolled anger also leads people to cross legal lines they ought not to cross. People with intermittent explosive disorder, for example, may have a road rage incident, assault someone, or damage property. All of these actions have legal ramifications, and these may be severe. If you don’t control your anger, you’ll eventually run afoul of the law and find yourself getting fined, in prison, or worse.

To maintain good emotional, mental, and physical health

If anger has its way in a person’s life, it leaves serious health issues in its wake. Being angry all the time, for instance, can lead to problems such as high blood pressure, cardiac health problems, and a higher risk of stroke and developing depression or anxiety, among other issues. Holding onto anger is not good for your health and overall well-being.

To facilitate better communication

Anger can cloud your judgment, and it can also get in the way of good communication. When you’re angry, the part of you that listens well and pays attention to facial cues, intonation, and the other aspects that make up communication, tends to get dulled or switched off entirely.

It’s hard to listen to what someone else is saying when you’re feeling angry. It’s also hard to express yourself well when you’re angry, and so to facilitate better communication it’s important to get anger under control.

Tips for controlling anger

While it is a powerful emotion, anger can be tamed and brought under control. Emotional regulation is possible with a few key interventions. Firstly, don’t try to deny or repress your anger.

If you’re angry about a situation, you need to own that and admit it to yourself. When you tamp down your feelings, make no mistake, they will burst out in some other, perhaps more inconvenient way. You are a thinking and feeling being – let the feelings of anger wash over you when they come up in a situation.

Secondly, you can control anger by learning how to express it well. Anger, like other emotions, requires some form of expression. Knowing how to express anger in a healthy way means that it’s not pent up, and you’re responding to the present situation calmly and clearly.

When you hold anger in, the unfortunate result is that it often explodes on unsuspecting and innocent bystanders. It’s better by far to say your piece and then move on than to hold onto grievances; that’s a recipe for having anger erupt uncontrollably later.

Other tips for controlling anger include:

Finding healthy outlets for your anger

Get regular exercise and make use of a journal to express your anger safely. Sometimes, a good laugh will help dissipate tension and make you feel lighter, too.

Knowing your triggers and anticipating them

If you know what angers you, you can plan accordingly and prepare yourself to face aggravating circumstances.

Giving yourself room and time to calm down

In a given situation where you begin to feel angry, instead of responding off the cuff, you can use relaxation techniques such as visualization, counting to ten, deep breathing, and muscle relaxation to calm yourself. Even walking away from the situation to clear your mind will help you engage meaningfully and with your anger under control.

There is help available for controlling anger through anger management counseling. Whether you do this individually or in a group setting, counseling can be a space for you to unpack your anger in all its dimensions. That includes understanding why anger has such a hold on your life, the unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors that feed your anger, and recognizing the damage uncontrolled anger has done in

Your life wasn’t meant to be lived under a cloud of anger. Rather, God intends that you have peace and that your relationships are healthy and life-giving. With help from a Christian counselor, you can begin journeying to enter that place of rest as you learn how to effectively control anger and express it well.

If anger has caused you problems, reach out today and find out more about anger management counseling or make an appointment to begin bringing anger under your control.