The Value of Anger: 16 Reasons Why It’s Beneficial to Be Angry
When compared to positive emotions like happiness, enthusiasm, and hope, anger has a bad reputation. Perhaps a lack of respect for anger stems from social, cultural, and religious factors, as well as the obvious manifestations of its often destructive outcomes, such as aggression and violence. Indeed, many people believe that we would be better off without anger as an emotion. However, an increasing number of social and evolutionary psychologists, brain scientists, and mental health professionals believe anger has valuable qualities that can benefit the human condition.
From an evolutionary standpoint, all emotions are appropriate in certain circumstances when experienced to the greatest extent possible, providing the resources to operate effectively toward a desired goal. Certain levels of stress and anxiety, for example, push us to perform at a high level. Sadness can be cathartic, filling us with gratitude for what we’ve lost while signalling to others that we need help recovering and healing. Similarly, mild to moderate anger can help us move forward positively; however, extreme or chronic anger can be harmful to our well-being.
Anger is more than just an aggressive reaction. It frequently provides us with information that allows us to engage with the world around us more effectively (as well as ourselves). If we perceive anger as something that informs us, we can adjust our response to improve our position. To that end, here is a list of benefits that anger can provide when the appropriate level of emotion is reached.
Read also how to balance emotions easily
16 Reasons Why It’s Beneficial to Be Angry
- ANGER IS INTENDED TO AID IN SURVIVAL.
Emotions evolved to protect us. Anger drives our fight response, which evolved to protect us from an enemy or danger. Anger is rooted in our primal need to survive and defend ourselves against aggression. Anger makes us more aware of potential threats and sharpens our focus. When we are threatened or attacked by a predator, our anger is automatically activated, prompting us to fight back and act swiftly and forcefully to protect ourselves.
- THE DISCHARGE OF ANGER IS CALMING
You feel physical and emotional pain when you are angry. When you are experiencing physical and emotional distress, anger drives you to take action. As a result, anger helps you cope with stress by first discharging the tension in your body, which calms your “nerves.” As a result, you may have an angry reaction and then feel calm.
- ANGER GIVES A FEELING OF CONTROL
An intense desire for control is a common cause of anger. Anger helps us feel in control rather than powerless by defending what we have earned. To improve our own welfare, anger serves to impose hardships or deny benefits to others. In contrast to those who suppress their anger, those who appropriately experience and express their anger are better able to meet their needs and have more control over their future. To avoid becoming fixated by the sense of power that anger may arouse, it’s important to exercise caution.
- ANGER FUELS OUR ENERGY
From a survival standpoint, we protect ourselves by retaliating and instilling fear in others. When someone wants to harm us, anger protects us. It empowers us with the vigour and aggression needed to defeat a more formidable foe. Anger can be a motivating factor in everyday situations that encourages us to defend our rights and come up with original solutions to problems we encounter. Anger “mobilises resources, heightens vigilance, and facilitates the removal of barriers in the way of our goal pursuits, particularly if the anger can be divorced from the propensity to harm or destroy,” as Richard Davidson puts it.
- Anger Empowers Us to Solve Issues
We can become enraged when we believe something is out of place. If things are not as they should be and need to be changed, anger drives us to act and motivates us to find solutions to our problems. Anger is triggered when we encounter an impediment or individual (or something else) that interferes with our needs. It prepares us to deal with the impediment or problem in our path so that we can get to where we want to go.
- ANGER MAKES US AWARE OF INJUSTICE
When we are denied our rights or face insults, disrespect, injustice, or exploitation, we frequently become enraged. Anger serves as an internal cue that something isn’t quite right, that someone has treated us unfairly or unjustly. Anger can be used to communicate with others: “You’d better treat me fairly, or you’ll pay a high price.” Standing up to injustice on a global scale can prevent people from taking advantage of others. This type of rage can affect positive social change and raise the social cost of misbehaving.
- ANGER PUSHES US TOWARD OUR OBJECTIVES
Anger motivates us to achieve our desired goals and rewards. When we do not get what we want, we become angry, which indicates that we have strayed from our desired goals. Anger seeks to eliminate whatever stands in the way of our desires. It energises and motivates us to take action in pursuit of our goals and ideals.
- ANGER DESTROYS OPTIMISM
Anger
Surprisingly, anger can inspire hope. It can encourage us to focus on what we want to accomplish rather than just the pain, insult, or victimisation. The anger system is focused on what is attainable rather than the impossible. When we are angry, we frequently believe that we have the ability to change the situation, allowing us to take action and move from an undesirable to a desirable position.
Anger functions as a value indicator and regulator in social and personal settings. It is triggered when our values do not align with the situation we are in. As a result, it makes us conscious of our deep-seated beliefs and what we stand for.
- ANGER SAFEGUARDS OUR VALUES AND BELIEFS
Anger functions as a value indicator and regulator in social and personal settings. It is triggered when our values do not align with the situation we are in. As a result, it makes us conscious of our deep-seated beliefs and what we stand for. It also motivates us to correct the discrepancy and act to change the situation (or our belief) in order to align the reality we face with our values.
- ANGER CAN BE USED AS A BARGAINING TOOL
Anger naturally erupts when someone places a lower value, or weight, on your well-being in comparison to their own. Anger is intended to rebalance the situation and thus increase our worth. Anger also strongly asserts our position and may lead to others’ compliance. Anger motivates us to respond to conflict in a way that allows us to bargain more effectively. It causes others to reconsider their positions in relation to ours. It communicates to the opposing party, “What you propose is too expensive for me.” You would be better off changing the value you place on me (lowering my cost or increasing your value).”
- ANGER BOOSTS COOPERATION
If the anger is justified and the response is appropriate, the misunderstanding is usually cleared up, resulting in increased cooperation. Anger communicates to others that it is important to listen to us—that we are annoyed and that it is prudent to pay attention to our words. “I don’t like the situation, and we need to work together to find a better solution,” Anger says. Anger compels you to defend yourself and constructively challenge the opposing party. As a result, anger promotes cooperation.
- ANGER HELPED NEGOTIATE POSITIONS
Anger may produce better results in business negotiations. When two parties are negotiating, the negotiator who appears more agitated may be in a better position to sway the agreement in their favour. Similarly, if one party believes the other party is upset, they may be more willing to compromise. In this regard, anger can be used as a negotiating tool to persuade, reach an agreement, or improve the negotiated position.
- PAINFUL FEELINGS ARE COVERED BY ANGER
Anger serves this critical psychological function in the same way that Sigmund Freud’s defence mechanisms exist to protect the personality from unbearable anxiety when the ego is under attack. Anger is a raw, “superficial” emotion that protects you from feeling more painful emotions. For example, a person who has been betrayed by their partner may use anger to control their partner rather than sharing their own painful pain.
- ANGER FORCES US TO GO DEEPER INTO OURSELVES
Anger is typically a very visibly felt emotion and can occasionally be explosive. However, there are many factors that cause anger to rise to the surface, such as fear and defensiveness, much like how a volcano is created when magma pushes up through the earth’s crust from below, depositing lava on the surface. The fear could be of letting go of control or of being alone, unloved, rejected, or abandoned, among other things. Because it is the most concealed layer of deeper issues, anger offers insight into who we are. It is crucial to follow the path of anger in order to identify and deal with its root causes. We can only free ourselves from the suffering that anger can occasionally cause if the blockage that causes it is removed.
- ANGER CAN HELP YOU BECOME BETTER SELF
You can improve and change for the better as a result of your anger. It sheds light on our shortcomings and flaws. This can result in good things if viewed positively. Similar to motivation, it can result in personal change. For instance, if someone is aware of the things that make them angry, they can work on these triggers to alter how they react to them, which will enhance their quality of life and interpersonal relationships.
- EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS INCREASED BY ANGER
Greater emotional intelligence is demonstrated by people who are willing to feel uncomfortable emotions like anger rather than avoiding or suppressing them. People with emotional intelligence don’t fight their anger; instead, they harness its “wisdom” for good. They have extremely adaptable emotional response systems as a result, and they are also more resilient and adaptive.
CONCLUSION of 16 Reasons Why It’s Beneficial to Be Angry
Despite a negative reputation, the idea of constructive anger is receiving more empirical support from researchers and has potential to be useful in our daily lives. We use anger as a key component of our fight-or-flight response. It served as a survival necessity in the past and still has some usefulness today. Anger can motivate us to take action and help us progress toward our objectives. It encourages us to work to right the wrongs we see in the world.
Extreme rage works well in dire life-or-death circumstances. However, this method is rarely helpful in day-to-day life. The secret to its success is expressing anger in a way that is appropriate to the circumstance, feeling it (rather than suppressing it), and using it wisely. We must be angry “with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way,” according to Aristotle. He added that it was not simple.
I’d like to close with a metaphor: Anger, like fire, is a primal force. It can be destructive if left unchecked, but when managed and used wisely, it can be a beneficial and powerful tool that leads to enlightenment.
