One Day at a Time

The Anger Is Real. Here’s How to Manage It.

Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty, by psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer

Earlier this week, I hosted a live office hours on YouTube so that people who don’t have access to a psychiatrist could come to me with questions about how to cope with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. Someone asked how to deal with anger and used the examples of fake news and people not taking this pandemic seriously as things that caused it.

I want to explore anger more in today’s column — the different types, where anger comes from, and what to do when it shows up. If we’re not careful, the way we react to frustrating triggers can add fuel to the fires of irritation and anger, and our responses can blow up in our faces instead of helping us move through the tough moment.

Let’s start with the seeds of anger. Think back to the last time you were angry. Anger doesn’t just come out of the blue—it starts somewhere. Fire needs fuel and a spark to get going.

This applies to any situation, but right now, the coronavirus is that fuel. We are the spark. How do we use this fuel to create glowing embers of warm connection with people we love in difficult times, rather than pouring gasoline on the fire and burning everything around us?

Here’s the science.

Really briefly, there are two types of fuel for anger. Let’s call these gasoline and diesel. The gasoline type is anger born from expectations — basically not getting something we want. The diesel type of anger is born from getting hurt, being put in a vulnerable situation, basically anything related to fear. Interestingly, similar to gas and diesel fuel, which both start from crude oil, both types of anger have something in common: wanting.

With expectations, we can get angry when we don’t get something we want. With fear, we can get angry when we get something we didn’t want. The only difference is the polarity. Expectations are related to wanting more of something, and fear is related to wanting less of something.

Let’s take the example of fake news about the coronavirus. There is a lot of anger and outrage out there about this, because the stakes of this virus are so real. Someone could fuel their own anger with either gasoline or diesel. If their expectations of wanting people to disseminate only accurate information aren’t met, they’re adding gasoline. If they are afraid that fake news will keep people from taking the situation seriously, they’re adding diesel. Both add fuel to the fire, and neither help the situation.

Why? When emotions burn hot, we can’t see or think clearly.

Just like anxiety and fear, anger also makes the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of our brain, go offline. This is where the terms “explosive anger” and “blind rage” come from. It doesn’t matter what fuel caused the fire. What matters is that the forest is burning. This applies to any anger we’re seeing out there right now. Check to see if anything has made you angry lately. Has it been your local, state, or national government not doing enough — or doing something that you’re afraid will make things worse? Has it been something you’ve seen people do at the grocery store or on social media? Has it been something a family member has done?

How do we bottle up all of this fuel and use its energy to drive forward together? Here is a simple, three-step process you can use when your anger flares up.

There are two types of fuel for anger. Let’s call these gasoline and diesel. The gasoline type is anger born from expectations. The diesel type of anger is born from getting hurt.

1. Remove yourself from the situation if you can, and find a safe place.

This might be a different room or just pushing back from your computer or phone. Take a few deep breaths, or do a short mindfulness exercise, like bringing your awareness to your feet to ground yourself in the present moment. This will help your thinking brain come back online so you can see that you’re standing in front of a small fire, holding a gallon of gasoline.

2. When your thinking brain is back online, remember back to the last time you dumped that fuel on the fire.

It could have happened when a social media post outraged you and you angrily replied, only to get into a Facebook or Twitter fight in front of the whole world. It could have been in a moment when your spouse did something small that caused you to blow your top. Do you feel proud of those moments? Of course not. Remember what the shame or regret feels like right now. Both are very useful flame retardants. Just like paying attention and seeing that cigarettes taste awful or that eating three pieces of cake gives you a stomachache as a result, seeing the results of your actions clearly hacks the reward systems in your brain — and makes you less excited to repeat that behavior in the future. But this only works if you take a moment to really feel those feelings of remorse and shame, not as a way to beat yourself up, but as a way to help you learn.

3. Bottle that fuel and use it to cook kindness.

A really good way to channel your anger energy is to direct it toward being kind. In a later post, I’ll go full-on into my lab’s research showing how a specific type of mindfulness practice called loving kindness can literally change how your brain fires, but for now I’ll give you an example from something that happened in my kitchen early this morning.

I was about to heat some water for tea when my wife asked if she could use the microwave first. I noticed a few self-righteous “What about my tea?” thoughts come into my head and some clenching in my body, but then I remembered how selfishness feels much worse than kindness. So I said, “Sure, go ahead.”

She couldn’t find the thing she was going to microwave, so I suggested that I get my water going while she looked. She left and came back when the microwave still had about a minute to go. I could sense a little impatience and noticed how I was starting to catch that same irritability, as my mind started spitting out thoughts of “Really, you can’t wait one minute.” This is a great example of the social contagion I talked about in an earlier column—impatience triggering irritability and so on. But instead of moving toward irritability, I took a deep breath, and we hugged for 40 seconds — big and strong — while the microwave finished heating my water. By the time the microwave beeped and my water boiled, our emotions had cooled and dissolved into smiles.

This might be hard to relate to right now, but it really only takes 30 seconds to stop and hug your spouse or kids. It’s really important to remember that we’re all on edge right now, and it is critical that we step back and be understanding with both ourselves and others. We should expect stronger emotions and emotional reactions from ourselves and others and work to not take things personally. Don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t be hard on others.

I’ll end with a page from the book my wife and I are reading each night before bed: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

“What do you think success is,” asked the boy.

“To love,” said the mole.

So, today, instead of trying to be successful at being right or making people change their behavior, see if you can first remind yourself what it feels like after the fire of anger has raged through the mental forest, and see if you can instead bottle that fuel of anger and be successful at loving.

Onward together. I’ll have more to share tomorrow. If you’re interested in a video recording of this material, I’ve created one here.