Anger and Stress Management - The Chicken and the Egg Story

You will see that wherever you will find stress, anger will be lurking below the surface like a stalking animal, ready to pounce and destroy you. Similarly, wherever there is anger, you will find that there is an insurmountable amount of stress. Which one is the primary cause and which one is the secondary one, is not very easy to distinguish or assess. However, make no mistake about it - these are two separate things, though one usually feeds on the other.

What Differentiates Anger from Stress

There is a basic difference between anger and stress. Anger is expressed as a sudden burst, a powerful explosion of ill feelings; while stress is an underlying pressure that steams in the mind over long periods of time. Usually one of the feelings is in lesser degree than the other - however, when both combine; the end product can be nothing sort of a disaster.

Anger sometimes is the result of a personal 'short-fuse'. Now, why the fuse is short, is another mater, outside the purview of this article. Anger can also originate from work pressure, stress, feeling of injustice, overall frustration and many others. It suffices to say that, anger will more often than not complicate issues than solve them. Stress, on the other hand can be compared with a smoldering fire that is almost invisible but powerful enough to burn through anything.

Employee Management

It is usually the result of entertaining distressed thoughts over long periods of time as a result of which, the mind becomes exhausted and the person's productivity and outcome decreases. This is the main reason why companies are so anxious to de-stress their employees, i.e. particularly to bring back the efficiency level to what it was.

Anger and stress management has become a very important aspect of employee management. Without a proper stress and anger management plan and course which can be repeated at regular intervals of time, the organizations may lose big time in man-hours since stress in particular destroys the competence of a person and their ability to perform. Therefore, lack of proper anger and stress management can easily destroy the congenial atmosphere in any organization and decrease productivity drastically.

Since it is not easy to determine which one leads to the other, a good check and balance system may be put into place for an anger and stress management plan. Employees should be aware and able to recognize the symptoms of both these maladies and be ready to take up any anger and stress management tools to reverse the trend before it becomes harmful both at the individual and at organizational levels.