We Need to Stop Being Angry Often

 Anger is a common and often intense  emotion that is characterized  by feeling of frustration, friction, annoyance , or conflict with another person, event, or situation, the USA Today website reports today (May 31, 2025). 

Although a lot of us think of anger as a limiting or mostly negative emotion, there are times it can be useful. "Anger can be helpful when it signals that something isn't right or needs to change ," says Raymond Chip Tafrate, a clinical psychologist and professor at Central Connecticut State University and co--author of "Anger Management for Everyone: 10 Proven Strategies to Help You Control Anger and Live a Happier Life."

Anger can reveal a problem that needs to be solved, motivate you to make a needed change, or push you to have a tough conversation. Think of becoming mad at a healh condition like obesity and deciding to tackle it, participaing in a public protest to affect social change, or getting the courage to approach a friend or colleague to insist their treatment of you or others improve.

At the same time, "anger can become a problem if it happens too often, is too intense, or lasts too long," says Tafrate. And there's a big difference between anger helping motivate you to have a hard conversation in the first place and approaching someone in a state of anger instead of with measured words or behaviors. 

We get upset about injustices in the world, poor treatment toward ourselves or others, the stressors of everyday life, or concerns over one's social, physical, or financial standing. 

Genetics may also play a role. Many people are born with a more negative nervous system that can make them more prone to respond negatively to perceived threats . Genes can also affect how we manage our emotional responses more generally.

Learning to control and manage anger can help you avoid hurting yourself and others, and keep you out of trouble and embarrassing situations. It's also not good for your body to too often experience the flood of stress hormones associated with anger.