Frustration is a rather unpleasant state in which we experience different emotions, from anger to rage, despair, despair, disappointment and a feeling of loss of control. Sometimes frustration is directed towards the outside world, otherwise we try it towards ourselves. And while it is true that there are no negative emotions since they all have a message to be transmitted and are important, it is also true that feeling frustrated is not a pleasant experience.
In fact, frustration often becomes the fuel of itself, fueling even more that unpleasant feeling. We can start the day feeling frustrated because we just get out of the house and remain trapped in a traffic jam, but if we do not handle that feeling, it will eventually become the standard response model to everything that happens to us, including small details that in another situation we would not even consider.
The main problem of uncontrolled frustration is that it makes us lose patience and self-control, so we tend to react excessively, and this will cause problems in interpersonal relationships and, of course, will harm our mood.
1. Externalizing the emotions won’t make you feel better
When we feel angry or frustrated, the most obvious solution seems to be to give free rein to those emotions, pull out all the feelings that we have inside to feel like a pressure cooker on the point of exploding. In these cases we can tell our best friend all the misfortunes that happened to us during the day or discharge our frustrations through a violent video game.
However, an experiment about rage conducted at the Iowa’s State University tells us that maybe it’s not a good idea. These psychologists have asked some people to hit a boxing bag to relieve their anger while other people were distracted by providing them information that had nothing to do with the cause of their anger. It was thus seen that people, who in theory had to get rid of anger by hitting a boxing bag, were angrier than those who had distracted themselves.
This does not mean that sometimes there is no need to relieve that anger, perhaps even physically, but in most cases it is not the best strategy, since it only gets to focus on the problem by adding gasoline to fire.
2. Diversion is always a good strategy
The power of diversion is enormous. A study conducted at Harvard University on the relationship between mood and behavior, found that people were more unhappy when they had nothing to concentrate on. In fact, these psychologists asserted that distraction, understood as the useless wandering of the mind, is one of the causes of unhappiness.
Without a doubt, after going through a stressful event that has generated profound frustration, if we let our mind wonder freely, the odds that will focus on what has just happened are many, and this will increase frustration.
Therefore, a good strategy is to look for something to do, preferably funny, that can improve your mood. If you dedicate yourself to your favorite hobby, for example, your brain will release endorphins that will help you counteract the feeling of frustration.
3. What has happened to you is not as unexpected as you think
In many cases frustration is the result of the surprise noting that the reality does not match our expectations. For example, we expected to arrive in time for the interview, but we were trapped in a traffic jam, or wanted to get home early but the queue at the supermarket chassis was much longer than we expected. These situations frustrate us because, in a sense, we consider them as a break in the natural order, a horrible situation that we were not prepared for.
In this sense, psychologist Albert Ellis believed that most of our unhappiness comes from confused expectations. We believe that some things should not happen, and that’s why they make us crazy when they do it. But if we look closely to the past, we will probably find that the frustrating situation is not so unlikely as we thought. In fact, it is also probable that we have experienced similar situations in the past, the problem is that since we do not like it, we prefer to ignore them and imagine the best scenario possible.
The idea is not to suffer in silence by becoming victims of the circumstances, but understand that the universe has nothing against us and that sometimes, most of the frustration is not derived from the situation but from our expectations not fulfilled.
4. You might be frustrated for another reason
If you often find yourself reacting with frustration to small accidents, it is likely that the cause is elsewhere. Sometimes we project our negative emotions on something else that has no relation to what makes us unhappy. In fact, the defense mechanisms serve to move some negative feelings towards other things or people.
Therefore, when you notice that you are reacting exaggeratedly to certain events, you lose your temper or you are overly angry, you may need to resolve another underlying conflict. You might feel deeply disappointed by someone, but you will not recognize it and you’re removing that problem.
Of course, thinking about what annoys you does not guarantee that you will feel better, sometimes you can even feel worse when you find the real problem. But the only way to alleviate those negative feelings is to deal with what’s really disturbing and worrying you.
5. Don’t be too hard with yourself
Often, when we are frustrated, there is a reminiscence of anger hidden toward us. If events make us crazy, it’s because they can remind ourselves of something of us that we consider horrible and we do not want to accept it. For example, if we are late for an appointment due to a road accident, we can unconsciously think that, finally, is our fault because we have not been sufficiently far-sighted.
If we get trapped in these thoughts, we will immerse ourselves in a cycle of self-negativity, angry with ourselves to be frustrated for an insignificant situation or making sure that we live the same frustrating event again. In fact, it is precisely the Buddhist idea behind the saṃsāra that we will be trapped in a negative cycle until we learn the lesson.
The problem is that blaming ourselves is useless, only serves to increase frustration. The best remedy is to have compassion, forgive ourselves, recognize our mistakes or defects and try to improve a little more every day. Acceptance is also a fundamental strategy if you want to learn to overcome frustration in an assertive manner. After all, fighting against ourselves does not make much sense.
Sources:
Killingsworth, M.A. & Gilbert, D.T. (2010) A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science; 330(6006): 932.
Bushman, B. J. (2002) Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding. PSPB; 28(6) 724-731.
