by Jan Sterrett

Created on: June 01, 2007   Last Updated: June 26, 2010

Your blood is boiling, your mind is reeling, your heart beat is increasing rapidly and you look like you might go postal any second. You're angry! What do you do with all that anger? How do you find a healthy way to express all that anger?

According to the American Psychological Association, "Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion." It becomes a problem "when it gets out of control and turns destructive."(1)

Do you find some acceptable way of getting that anger out of your system, or do you just bite your tongue, not express how you're feeling, and push all those angry feelings down inside of you?

The APA states that suppressing your anger can mean that "if it isn't allowed outward expression, your anger can turn inward-on yourself. Anger turned inward may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression."(1) That kind of reaction can then create further mental and physical health problems. The APA further states that, "Unexpressed anger can create other problems. It can lead to pathological expressions of anger, such as passive-aggressive behavior a personality that seems perpetually cynical and hostile." (1)

For me, my anger has often been a way of telling me that a situation is not good for me. My anger has often been the force that gets me moving away from or out of those kinds of situations.

I probably tend to suppress my anger at times, where I'm not always easily able to verbally express what I'm feeling right at that moment. There have been other things that have worked for me as far as being a way of releasing some of the angry feelings I have inside.

At times, I've thrown darts at a dartboard. Sometimes I've even put up a picture of the person I was angry with in the center of the dartboard. This didn't physically hurt the person at all, but only put a few dart holes in the picture, which can easily be replaced. Of course, sometimes, even the picture wasn't adversely affected. Probably the angrier I was, the worse my aim was, so my dart throwing release of my anger, may not have even gotten anywhere near that picture to do any damage to it.

On one occasion I started tearing up the person's shirt. I probably should have settled on tearing up paper into shreds at that time, but that just didn't seem quite satisfying enough to me. It turned out he walked in while I was busy tearing up his shirt, and my anger quickly turned to guilt. But since he didn't end up getting angry at me for ruining his shirt, in fact he started laughing

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