How to Release the Rage: 9 Healthy Ways to Express Anger

By Jonathan Carson

Your anger isn’t bad, it’s just misunderstood. Learning how to feel, accept, and release anger in healthy ways can have a profoundly positive impact in your life.

“For f*ck’s sake, that’s f*cken bullsh*t,” I yelled. “I just wanna pick up this f*cken table and smash it through the f*cken window!”

After several days of intense stress, it just took one more bit of bad news for my emotional state to boil over. I could feel anger overcome me from one moment to the next. A powerful energy bounced around my body like a pin ball. I was pacing around the small cabin searching for a way to unload and my expletive-laden outburst about smashing windows with a table was the best I could come up with.

My girlfriend and I were staying in a busy holiday park on the outskirts of Paris. It was late at night. I didn’t want to freak out the hundreds of happy campers within earshot by using one of my usual strategies for processing anger, so I did my best to put a lid on it. I went to bed with anger coursing through my body, hoping I could sleep it off. But I felt like a bottle of fizzy drink that had been shaken up and with no way to let off steam, the feeling overwhelmed me.

Naturally, I turned to one of my go-to medicines: Watching mindless YouTube videos in another room to distract myself from my feelings (don’t judge me).

It was during this time I fired off this tweet.

I rarely feel anger this acutely so I was deeply curious about the experience — how it felt in my body and how it desperately wanted to be expressed or released.

I felt a lack of control, high energy (and a need to use it), restlessness (probably because I couldn’t use the energy), and shame (I noticed I couldn’t hold eye contact with my girlfriend before I processed the anger, which I found interesting).

What an utterly fascinating emotion, I thought to myself. I need to learn more about it.

What is Anger? 

Anger is a human emotion, like happiness, joy, sadness, and fear. In simple terms, emotions are chemical reactions in the body, filtered through our thoughts, experiences and learned behaviors, in response to stimuli. Anger is a type of stress response, which engages our sympathetic (fight, flight, freeze) nervous system. It’s particularly handy at preparing us to fight, which is why it can be so destructive.

But what actually causes anger? I like author Vivian Dittmar’s simple theory in her book ‘The Power of Feelings’:

“Anger arises in our system as a reaction to the interpretation ‘This is wrong’.”

What’s “wrong” to you may not be wrong to someone else, which is why the word interpretation is so important here. And we all have different anger thresholds depending on our history with anger, genetic disposition, and our emotional state in any given moment.

If you must know, the news that triggered my angry outburst at the start of the article was a mobile provider telling me they couldn’t add more data to my plan.

I felt this was wrong and, in my highly up-regulated, stressed state (there was a lot going on at the time), I got angry. I know it probably sounds totally irrational, but anger often is.

Pause: It may be helpful to take a moment and think about the last time you got angry and what tends to trigger this response in you.

Your Brain on Anger 

The anger response in the body is incredibly complex. Your brain is constantly interpreting the world around you and when you identify “wrongness” your amygdala, your ancient integrative centre for emotions, jumps into action.

Before the rational, thinking part of your brain gets a chance to process the situation, your system’s flooded with a cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones, including cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine. This triggers your sympathetic response, raises your heart rate and blood pressure, and energizes your muscles to get you ready to fight.

Your vision and digestion are impaired and your pre-frontal cortex, which controls reasoning and moderates behavior, is offline. Your attention narrows and you become fixated on the object of your anger. With your body in such a heightened state, you’re much more impulsive and prone to making poor decisions, saying things you’ll later regret and physical violence.

That’s the science of it, but I prefer Dittmar’s beautiful, poetic description of anger in motion:

“Anger is red, anger is fire, anger is fully charged and in search of a mode of expression. Anger is like magma pushed up through a crater or like lightning released between layers of atmosphere. The power of anger can create and destroy great things. Anger is primarily the power of action. Our body is flooded with adrenaline, the whole system readies itself for action and energy resources of unfathomable dimensions are mobilized. The impossible is made possible; the undesired is moved out of the way. The power of anger can rush through us like a lightning bolt if we allow it to.”

No wonder I wanted to smash the f**king table through the f**king window…

The Dark Side of Anger

Unfortunately, most of us have been raised in a society that has an unhealthy relationship with anger.

From a young age, you were probably taught that anger’s a “bad” emotion and you’ll be punished or ostracized for expressing it. This is why anger and shame often go hand-in-hand.

On the other hand, you may have been raised in a home where anger was expressed freely, but in destructive and harmful ways.

Whatever your history with anger, you’ve probably been conditioned to respond to the sensations of anger in one or more of the following ways:

Suppression

The “put a lid on it” approach that you’ve been taught since childhood. You don’t feel safe expressing your anger and so you bottle it up, push it down, and hope it goes away. Narrator: Little did he know, anger does not simply “go away”. 

Distraction

Similar to suppression, distraction or avoidance is when you choose to divert your attention away from the anger and onto something else, usually something comforting or numbing, like food, Netflix, or other mind-numbing substances so you don’t have to feel it.

Expression (Destructive)

You’re quickly overwhelmed by the sensations of anger and erupt in a reactionary volcano of regrettable actions — typically yelling, arguing, hurtful words, slamming doors, risky behavior, or physical violence.

The problem with these responses to anger is someone always gets hurt.

Suppression and distraction only ends up hurting you and the people close to you in the long-run. When the energy of anger isn’t felt, expressed and processed, it shows up in your life in other, more insidious ways, such as chronic stress, illness, depression, or rage.

Expressing anger in a destructive way hurts the target of your anger. It may feel good in the moment, but you’ll leave a trail of devastation in your wake.

Thankfully, there are ways to express and release anger in healthy, constructive ways where no one has to get hurt.

 

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The Wisdom of Anger

If there’s one thing you learn from reading this, I hope it is this: Anger is not bad.

How you direct your anger can be bad, but it can also be a powerful force for good and a medicine to support deep healing.

Anger is a perfectly reasonable response to “wrongness” or injustice. In fact, you need anger in order to figure out where you stand in the world.

“Through anger, we take a position. The moment I define something as wrong, I draw my sword of clarity and define what I think is acceptable and what is not. In this case, anger is the power which enables me to stand up for the position I have taken and defend it if necessary. Thus, anger is the power of clarity. Its fire enables me to take action. Through anger, I can withstand anyone who oversteps my boundaries and stand up for my own needs.” — Vivian Dittmar, The Power of Feelings

If you’ve been using the suppression or distraction strategy all your life, then chances are you’ve got quite a lot of pent up anger swirling around inside you. In this case, your anger is a subconscious cry for help. There are likely repressed and neglected parts of you that need love and attention.

Learning how to accept anger, to feel it, harness it, and let it flow through you is a skill that can be developed, regardless of how long you’ve been avoiding it.

And when you learn to understand and move anger in this way, any shame you may have associated with it in the past melts away.

“Your anger is a messenger. Rather than turning your back and running from it, you need to learn to open to anger and ask it what it has to teach you.”

Feeling vs Story

One of the most valuable skills you can learn for working with anger is differentiating between THE FEELING OF ANGER (BODY) and THE STORY OF ANGER (MIND).

The Feeling of Anger is the body’s chemical response outlined above. You can tune in to your body to fully experience the sensations of anger. It’s fascinating how much is going on under the surface when anger’s coursing through your system. Sometimes simply observing the feeling of anger — seeing and accepting — is enough to allow the emotion to pass.

The Story of Anger is the initial trigger (the wrongness or injustice you experienced) on steroids. You allow it to grow bigger and bigger in your mind. It may start with, “He was wrong to treat me this way” and then become, “He’s ALWAYS like this” before morphing into, “He’s such a terrible person and I need to make sure he knows it”. The Story of Anger fuels the Feeling of Anger. It can create a vicious cycle that makes the experience of anger much worse than it needs to be.

In order to break out of The Story of Anger, which is unfolding in your mind, you need to allow the energy of anger to move. This means learning to express and release your anger in healthy ways so it doesn’t stay stuck in your body, creating an exhausting, destructive mess that erupts all over the “villain” in your story.

The strategies below can help you to move, release, and express the energy of anger

How to Release Anger in Healthy Ways

Working out for anger

These strategies will help you move the energy of anger through your body and express it in healthy ways. They are not strategies for getting to the root cause of your anger.

Move Your Body

Your muscles are tense, you’re jacked up on adrenaline, and you have a sudden urge to smash a f*cken table through the f*cken window — I don’t know if you realise it, but your anger response is the all-natural pre-workout. One of the best ways to release anger is by moving your body. Go to the gym, take a HIIT class, do yoga — use the energy of anger constructively. Exercise has the added benefit of releasing endorphins, which boost your mood and relieve stress. Even if you don’t release every last drop of anger, you should feel a whole lot better after moving your body.

Scream Therapy

You know how you often feel like screaming when you’re angry? But you don’t do it because it’s not socially acceptable. Next time, how about actually doing it? Scream! As loud and as ferociously as you can.

I’m not saying to scream out loud in a public place as that could attract unwanted attention. However, you can either:

  • Scream into a pillow/cushion, which helps to suppress the sound
  • Scream underwater — either at the beach, in the bath, or in a bucket
  • Scream in the car (just make sure the windows are up and you’re not in a busy area)

I personally use screaming quite a lot. Sometimes as a preventative when I feel pent up stress, which could lead to anger, but also as a direct anger release. My favourite place to do this is at the beach, but I’ve also done it in the bath, in the car, and into a pillow. If you’re using a pillow, you can also use it as a punching bag for extra release.

Controlled Violence

Anger activates your nervous system’s “fight” response. This is why anger often leads to violence. But uncontrolled violence can have serious consequences. Instead, you can use controlled violence to release your anger. One of the best ways to do this is to take your anger out on a boxing bag. It feels the same, but no one gets hurt. If you don’t have a boxing bag, grab a pillow and beat the crap out of it (then scream into it). It’s much healthier than hurting another person or punching holes through walls.

Qigong Shaking / Bioenergetics

Shaking is a bit further along the “woo” spectrum than some of the other strategies for releasing anger. But it’s one of my personal go-to strategies for moving all sorts of emotional blockages in my body. Have you ever noticed that when you’re angry, you can get so tense that your body starts to tremble? It seems to be a natural physiological response to strong emotion, particularly anger and fear. Shaking is a way of doing this consciously. It has its roots in the ancient Chinese practice of Qigong, but it’s also seen in many indigenous cultural rituals and dances. It’s a simple practice you can do in the privacy of your home that helps to get your blood flowing and move the energy of anger through your body.

How to do Qigong shaking for anger

  1. Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart.
  2. Relax your body and let your arms hang at your sides.
  3. Start bouncing on your heels, slowly at first.
  4. Let your arms, hands, shoulders, neck, and head move freely as you bounce.
  5. Gradually shake faster and more vigorously. Feel free to jump up and down like you’re skipping an invisible rope and thrash your limbs around. The idea is to let go of all inhibitions.
  6. It can be helpful to vocalize your anger by yelling, grunting like a caveman, or sighing out loud.
  7. After a minute, stand still and pause for a moment. Tune in to how you’re feeling. Has there been a shift in your emotional state?
  8. Repeat up to 3 rounds if needed.

Breathwork

Breathing exercises can help you to release anger. This will usually only work if you have the capacity and control to sit with your anger for a moment. If you have anger energy coursing through your body, then you may be better of starting with one of the more active, physical practices. As I mentioned above, anger activates the sympathetic (fight, flee, freeze) response. Breathwork can help shift you into a parasympathetic (rest, digest, restore) state. However, you want to be careful not to use breathwork bypass the emotion of anger. You want to make sure you can feel and release the anger before down-regulating your nervous system. I recommend combining several short breathing exercises to help release your anger.

Breathwork for Anger

  1. Sit with your anger for 3-5 minutes. Feel the sensations. Where is the tension in your body? Witness the story you’re telling yourself. You might find the anger melts away simply by observing it.
  2. Deep inhale with sighs for 3 repetitions: Inhale deeply through your nose, into your belly, and when you exhale let out a loud sigh. This is a great way to offload stress, frustration and anger.
  3. Bhastrika pranayama: Do 3 rounds of a more activating breathing practice like Bhastrika pranayama (link to video). By engaging your aims and exhaling forcefully it may help to move the energy of anger out.
  4. Calming breathwork: Do 3-5 minutes of slow, deep breathing where your exhale is longer than your inhale. Eg. 1:2 breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, or LSD breathing). This will help shift you from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state.

After going through these breathing practices, which take about 15 minutes all up, you should be in a very different state of mind than when you started.

Tense and Release

Anger often feels like pent up tension in the body. This practice gets you to dial the tension up and then release in a controlled way that you’re not going to regret later.

  1. Clench all of the muscles in your face as tightly and aggressively as you can. Scrunch your face, tense your neck, your chest, your arms and hands, your abdomen, your legs and butt, and your feet. You should feel like you’re about to explode.
  2. When you can’t hold the tension anymore, release it fully. Relax all of your muscles, let out a deep sigh, and feel the tension (and anger) flow out of your body.
  3. Repeat this two more times and you should feel a lot of the anger energy has dissipated.

A similar practice is to take a tea towel, or any kind of small towel, and try and twist it as hard as you can for as long as you can, and then release.

Take Action

Can you harness the energy of anger and use it to take action? Eg. If you’re angry about a political issue in your area, can you channel that anger into writing to your local representative or organising a protest? Or if you’re angry about how you’re being treated at work, can you direct that energy towards up-skilling, building a side-hustle, or searching for a new job? Anger is energy for you to use how you choose. Rather than letting the cycle of anger suck the energy out of you, why not use that energy to make your situation better?

“Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” — Malcolm X

A recent study also found that anger can help you with attaining your goals (taking action).

Writing or Journaling 

Attacking a blank page with a pen can be a powerful outlet for anger. There is a physical aspect to it. You can clench the pen tightly and scribble furiously. But there’s also the psychological aspect — taking the thoughts and stories bouncing around in your mind and releasing them into words on a page. There’s even a term for it — Rage Journaling. If you’re a logical, intellectual person, this may be an effective way to release the energy of anger. It helps to create some distance between the FEELING OF ANGER and the STORY OF ANGER. There is some research to support the use of expressive writing in managing anger and a lot of research to support is use for managing stress.

Be With Anger

This approach requires the most skill, especially if you struggle with experiencing anger. But, ultimately, it’s where you want to get to. Being able to be with your anger — to feel it fully and allow it to unfold — is one of the most profound ways of moving the energy of anger through you. This takes awareness and awareness takes practice. All of the other strategies outlined here can help you release anger, but this can help you process it. A practice known as R.A.I.N (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture), from psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach, provides a framework for being with your anger.

R.A.I.N Practice for Anger

Recognize what is happening: Know that you are experiencing anger.

Allow the experience to be, just as it is: Don’t resist the feelings arising, don’t run away, don’t distract yourself. Allow the experience of anger to be as it is.

Investigate with interest and care: Can you explore your anger? What triggered it? Where is it coming from? What story is fueling it? Is it a reasonable response or have you lost control? What message or teaching does this anger have for you?

Nurture with self-compassion: Seek to understand what part of you is wanting to be heard or seen and offer love, acceptance, and understanding to it. As the late Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh says, cradle your anger like a baby and tend to its needs.

“Anger is like a howling baby, suffering and crying. The baby needs his mother to embrace him. You are the mother for your baby, your anger. The moment you begin to practice breathing mindfully in and out, you have the energy of a mother, to cradle and embrace the baby. Just embracing your anger, just breathing in and breathing out, that is good enough. The baby will feel relief right away.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger

How to Process Your Anger

This article has been all about releasing the energy of anger so you can escape patterns of suppression, distraction, or destructive behavior.

But if you really want to understand your anger and unravel the triggers, trauma and beliefs that cause anger to arise in you, you’ll need to begin a journey of self-inquiry and self-reflection.

This is the journey I’m on myself and The Now is, essentially, my way of sharing that journey with you. If you got something out this article and you’d like to hear more from me, please consider signing up for The Now Newsletter below. I share life-altering insights from ancient wisdom, modern science and everything in between, only when it comes bursting out of me.