> Emotional and Mental Health > Anger Management

Visiting my parents in my hometown of Sarnia last week, I noticed they did crossword puzzles after supper. When I asked when they had taken this up, they told me they had been doing it for almost a year. My mom explained, “it keeps the mind sharp.” When I went running with one of my high school friends, we spent a long time stretching. He explained to me, “it’s the key to preventing injury.” We know how to keep our minds sharp and our bodies healthy, but we seem to be at a loss as to what we can do to promote healthy emotions. In this column I want to share two essential elements of emotional health.

Being Emotionally Aware

Emotions let us know what is important to us, particularly with regard to our relationships with others and self. If we cannot recognize our emotions or if we ignore them, we cut ourselves off from a significant part of what it means to be human. Research shows that over the long term, ignored or suppressed emotions act as low-level stressors that have a negative effect on both mental and physical health. Recently my daughter was watching a movie at a friend’s house. During a sad scene she began to cry. Immediately the father told her to either pull herself together or leave the room. He was obviously uncomfortable around emotions. A couple of weeks after the movie night the father was admitted to the hospital with stomach pain. Tests found that most of the lining of his stomach had been eaten away. With emotions, if we don’t attend to them, they will eat away at us–literally. Simply naming what we are feeling is a critical first step.

Managing Our Emotions

After taking that first “awareness” step, we must then manage our emotions properly. This involves learning to interpret them, express them appropriately, and attend to them in positive ways. For example, we often get angry over being stuck in a traffic jam. Yet in reality there is nothing we can do about it and anger is not very helpful. Instead of being angry, we need to focus on soothing ourselves by listening to music or thinking about more pleasant things than the traffic. In contrast, we may find ourselves at a funeral, feeling a deep sense of loss and grief, and yet, because of social pressure, we fight back the tears in order to be “strong.” In this instance it is healthy and appropriate to express our feelings of grief and pain. Emotional health is dependant on our ability to manage and process our emotions in healthy and constructive ways.

The three questions we need to ask ourselves are: “What I am feeling?” “Why am I feeling this way?” and “How will I deal with these feelings?” Answering these questions not only leads to emotional health, but to overall health as well.

Dr. Mark Davies is a registered psychologist who teaches at Carey & Regent College on the UBC campus and has a private practice in Surrey, BC. A writer and speaker, Mark has conducted seminars across the country on emotional health and having healthy families. He has also worked with institutions and business to create emotionally healthy systems and employees.

Source: alive #252, October 2003