ANGER MANAGEMENT

Find yourself feeling angry a lot of the time? Here's how to figure out why you're getting riled up and expert tips on how to deal with it

- SARAH MARINOS

IT'S an important emotion because it's usually a sign that something isn't right or that someone has done you wrong. But anger can also be damaging - it can impair your judgment, have a negative impact on your health and cause problems in your relationships if it's not controlled.

"Anger can be destructive," says Canadian psychologist Peter Sacco, author of What's Your Anger Type? "But I've also seen the flip side where anger is used constructively and becomes a call to action.

It can be a time when passive, timid people who normally sit back and watch bad things happen to themselves or others finally start to act and master their worlds."

WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE SO ANGRY?

How angry we are - or not - is often influenced by childhood, Sacco says.

"Some people were brought up in angry and abusive environments and that was all they ever knew," he says. "Nobody helped them modify their thoughts and feelings.

"We feed our subconscious mind scripts and these angry people cultivated destructive, bitter and vengeful scripts and committed them to memory.

Then there are people who are highly frustrated and stressed. "They love pressure and when things are great, they're great," he says. "But when things are less than great, these people have polarised their thinking process to equate that with failure and worthlessness."

Here's an outline of the most common types of anger, the telltale signs, and expert advice on how you can start to control your anger instead of letting it control you.

Compressive anger

The causes "With this type of anger people just explode, Sacco explains. "They go from zero to 60 in microseconds. This anger is associated with violence.