Anger is a normal human emotion, just like feeling sad or happy. Everyone gets angry, and mild anger can sometimes be useful to signal messages to us, help us deal with situations or to express strong feelings.
However, if anger is not managed properly and is expressed in harmful ways, or persists over a long period of time, then it can lead to problems in relationships at home and at work and can affect the overall quality of your life.
Anger can also negatively affect your physical health. Research shows that anger can increase people's chances of developing coronary heart disease. It can also lead to stress-related problems, such as insomnia, digestive problems, and headaches.
Manage your anger by applying these techniques to your life:
1. Stop yourself, even for a few seconds.
When you feel yourself boiling up, try to catch yourself and stop. Focus on your breath for at least 10 seconds, OR request to take a time out to cool down and gather yourself.
2. Once you're calm, express your anger
As soon as you're thinking clearer, express your frustration in an assertive but not demeaning way. State your concerns and needs clearly and directly, without hurting or intimidating others. Start your sentence with 'I' to describe how you're feeling.
Avoid using words like ‘never' or ‘always' (for example, ‘You're always late!'), as these statements are usually inaccurate, make you feel as though your anger is justified, and don't leave much possibility for the problem to be solved.
3. Get some exercise
Physical activity can help reduce stress that can cause you to become angry. It can let off any built up frustration that is likely to be released by the next thing that triggers you. If you feel yourself starting to get frustrated go for a brisk walk or run, or spend some time doing other enjoyable physical activities.
4. Journaling
Journaling the times you feel angry and/or lash out can be highly effective in managing your anger and getting to the root of what is causing the anger.
It is useful to note down after each episode occurs- what triggered you, what you felt in your body, what you thought during the situation, how you reacted and what the outcome was.
By having this on paper we are able to see any patterns we have in what angers us and any certain times of the day or particular people that are usually involved. We can become our own detectives of our behaviour and this helps us to anticipate when we might start to get angry by noticing our bodily sensations. We can then, either avoid certain triggering situations or deal with it in a constructive way as we become more aware and prepared.
Journaling itself is also therepeutic and a great way to calm yourself by unloading any built up frustration. Journaling could also play as a preventative measure as our 'heat of the moment' words could be written on paper, letting us deal with the situation in a more constructive and rational way.
5. Identify possible solutions
Instead of focusing on what makes you angry or annoyed, focus on how you can solve the issue to make you feel better.
For example fixating on how your friend is always late to your outings and working yourself up about that won't help you, it'll only make you feel worse. Instead, you could have a conversation with your friend explaining how you feel when she is late and brainstorm things together that will help her to be more on time. Remind yourself that pro-longed anger won't fix anything and usually will only make it worse.
6. Take a few timeouts
Give yourself short breaks during the day and especially when things are starting to stress you. This can be in the form of meditating, journaling or even just catching your breath and reflecting.
This stops us from constantly being on auto-pilot mode and allows for some space to emerge between a situation and our reaction. Think of our anger building up like a snow ball, slowly but surely throughout the day, things can get to us and build up, until it gets so big that even the tiniest trigger can set it off.
Once we realise our anger is affecting our personal life and our physical body in a negative way we can take the effective steps to manage our anger and let it be apart of our lives just like any other emotions where we can control it, instead of it controlling us.
With love,
Jacqui Zdravkovski