The Reason Why Anxiety and Anger Are Sometimes Inseparable

Many of our emotions are connected, but no two are more consistently related than anxiety and anger. Research shows that people who have anxiety disorders experience more frequent and more intense angry outbursts than those who do not struggle with anxiety. This is because one emotion affects the other, and together they create a cycle of dysregulated behavior.

The good news is that when we learn to manage one of these emotions, it naturally affects our experience with the other. Anxiety and anger can cause much emotional dysregulation together, but they can also be managed together.

Fight or Flight

When we feel anxious, that is our body already in fight or flight mode. Something has triggered a stress response, like a siren to our immune system. It responds by flooding our system with stress hormones.

The feeling of anxiety is like when a vehicle idles its engine: it is switched on, it is in gear, and it is waiting for the gas pedal to send it off. This state of pent-up energy is vital to our survival, and it usually ensures that we have a safe getaway from whatever is threatening us. This is the definition of flight, in the fight or flight response.

However, what usually happens is that we don’t flee the situation that has made us anxious. For example, maybe the thing that triggered our anxiety is a work presentation the following day. As much as we would like to avoid it, we must follow through. In a case like this, we are facing the threat rather than running from it. According to our survival instinct, we have chosen fight over flight.

Of course, we can’t truly fight anyone in our office at work, and we can’t fight a presentation. In this case, our fight response might look like intense irritability, verbal aggression, impatience, and frustration. We feel an intense combination of anxiety and anger, but we can only channel a small portion of what we feel.

Not only that, but we must do so in a professional environment surrounded by peers and bosses, using corporate language, while wearing formal clothes. In many ways and for many, we must suppress the intense emotions we feel, or else we run the risk of having a meltdown in a place where there would be dire consequences.

Don’t express it: repress it!

The anxiety and anger cycle usually begins in childhood. Many of us were taught, either directly or indirectly, that we couldn’t feel certain ways, do certain things, or express ourselves in certain ways.

Naturally introverted children were forced to spend time with other kids, and naturally exuberant kids were disciplined for being too loud. They learned to “walk on eggshells” at home because they felt they must act a certain way or face the consequences. For many people, this was the beginning of many suppressed emotions and a lifetime of anxiety.

One connection that many people don’t make is that anxiety is often rooted in shame. We might feel ashamed of something we did in childhood, or something we failed to do. That experience led us to feel anxious about being potentially rejected by our loved ones. As we grow up, we begin to realize how unfair that is, and over time, we still feel anxious and nervous around our family, but we are also angry at them.

In this way, shame turns to anxiety, and anxiety turns to anger. These are deep-seated emotions that have spent decades shaping our mindset and affecting our self-worth. They are not easy to confront, nor will they resolve neatly.

Blocked Emotions

As adults who struggle with both anxiety and anger, we often don’t know how to properly handle either emotion. Anxiety is intense and debilitating, stealing our focus and making us feel stuck. Anger seems to come out of nowhere, and we can sound way too harsh, cold, and prickly. We would rather not feel either of these ways. We would rather find a way to be emotionally regulated and not ruin our friendships, careers, or relationships because of anger and anxiety.

One visualization that helps is to picture a tube of paint. It hasn’t been used in a long time, and there is a blob of hardened paint blocking the opening. If you were to try to squeeze some out, what would likely happen is that pressure would build up inside the tube until it literally exploded, creating a big mess. A better solution is to try to remove the blockage of paint on the opening first.

Everyone who deals with intense anxiety and anger has suppressed emotions, like all the paint in the tube. We suppress our emotions for many reasons, but the most common reason is that we feel it is unsafe to express ourselves. This might be because of how we grew up, or it might be because we never learned how to safely discharge the tension we felt.

Unfortunately, when we hold everything in, it becomes infinitely more intense. At some point, just like that tube of paint, our emotions will explode in ways we can’t hold back from, leading to more shame, regret, and suppressed emotions.

The Physical Effects

The worst part about suppressed emotions is that they don’t disappear. Every time we ignore an emotion or push it out of sight, it sticks around in our bodies. We feel suppressed emotions physically. We feel them in the eye twitch that won’t stop, the jaw that clenches all night long, the headaches, the sleep loss, the digestive issues, and the high blood pressure. Anxiety and anger convert into ailments, aches, and chronic health issues.

This gives our first solution to the complex problem. While it won’t cure us of our anxiety issues, physical exercise can help us to emotionally regulate, and all we need is some space and a bit of time each day.

There’s a reason people were urged to go on a mental health walk each day during the pandemic. Physical activity is an effective way of regulating suppressed emotions. It’s also one of the reasons why people hang punching bags in their garages. It is an appropriate way to discharge pent-up anxiety and anger without hurting anything or anyone.

Longterm Help

Looking back at our issues, we can see how anxiety is often triggered by shame and that it often turns into anger. Of course, this is not true for everyone, but it is a general pattern. Most people who struggle with anxiety and anger also tend to suppress their emotions, which leads to more issues down the road. While physical activity is a healthy way to discharge tension, we need to go a little deeper to fully get a handle on our anxiety and anger.

Like so many other things in life, we have a better chance at a breakthrough if we work with others. We can try to tackle our issues alone, but it’ll likely lead to more frustration. We need to open up to someone about our struggles, and trust them to see us, understand us, and give us a space to be ourselves, however messy we are.

The best hope we have at conquering anxiety and anger is to get counseling or therapy. It might be a long road, and things might feel uncomfortable at times, but a new life awaits us if we are willing to do some work to get there.

This site has an online catalog of counselors available to help with overcoming anxiety and anger. Reach out to a counselor or the office to find the support you need.