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Expressive Writing Can Help You Vent Your Anger Instantly

Anger is an emotion difficult to get rid of. As you grow older, even small irritants can make you instantly furious. Anger however is the biggest risk factor for heart disease. 

Here is an interesting trick to deal with it. Journaling. Write down as soon as you come across an anger provoking situation. This technique works wonders in giving a voice to your pent up emotions. So, next time you feel angry and helpless, just start scribbling it on a notebook. You can alternatively also email yourself. 

 

This is backed by a recent study as well. Expressing your feelings on a sheet of paper can cool your brain and help you perform the stress-inducing task more efficiently, finds the study. 

According to researchers, worrying takes up cognitive resources. Due to the worrying, you are constantly multi-tasking because you are doing one task and trying to monitor and suppress your worries at the same time. "Our findings show that if you get these worries out of your head through expressive writing, those cognitive resources are freed up to work toward the task you're completing and you become more efficient," said lead author Hans Schroder, doctoral student at Michigan State University (MSU). 

(Also read: 5 Ways You Can Overcome Your Negative Thoughts ) 

"Expressive writing makes the mind work less hard on upcoming stressful tasks, which is what worriers often get 'burned out' over, their worried minds working harder and hotter," added Jason Moser, Associate Professor at MSU. 
For the study, published in the journal Psychophysiology, college students identified as chronically anxious through a validated screening measure completed a computer-based "flanker task" that measured their response accuracy and reaction times. 

This is better than rushing to your partner or a colleague and go and on about what happened and how you are going mad over it. When you vent your anger by talking, you are only bringing negativity to the environment. You are passing on your anger to someone else. However, bottling up emotions can be bad for health. 

So, writing down your anger can be a good alternative to venting out loud. Next time your neighbour or your maid irritates you, try this trick. You can jot down some notes or email yourself about why you are angry. This will allow your mind to slow down. It will drain out all your bottled emotions.

Source: lifehacker

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