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Anger

6 Tips for Dealing Better With Anger

No matter its source, anger itself often leads to increased conflict.

Key points

  • People are more prone to becoming and remaining angry when they feel helpless.
  • Thinking of an anger-triggering event in a different light can help defuse discomfort.
  • Asking whether a triggering event merits an angry response can help prevent or resolve it.
Source: Peopleimages-Yuri A/Shutterstock
Source: Peopleimages-Yuri A/Shutterstock

Anger often occurs when people do not feel in control of a situation, such as when someone is injured in a traffic accident or has been forced to do something against their will. Anger can also occur when people feel threatened or vulnerable.

The primitive purpose of anger is to help reassert control to help ensure our survival. Sometimes, anger leads us to take other necessary actions to improve a situation. However, in today’s world, anger by itself often leads to increased conflict and rarely provides a long-term solution. Further, people are often angered by trivial matters, for which an uncontrolled angry response is unnecessary and unhelpful. Instead, anger can be prevented or channeled in a constructive way.

The key to preventing or better controlling anger is to change the thought pattern that is triggering and/or perpetuating it. For instance, instead of thinking, “I hate what just happened,” or “I’m being treated unfairly,” turning attention to a neutral or positive calming idea can help defuse the negative emotion. This blog reviews six such anger-modifying thoughts.

Taking Charge

People are more prone to becoming and remaining angry when they feel helpless. Thus, a calming thought can be, “While I cannot control what happens to me, I can control how I react to the situation.”

The knowledge that people can control their own emotional reactions can make it easier to remain calm. Further, people who become uncontrollably angry should recognize that they can exercise control if they choose to and apply appropriate measures, as described in this blog.

Reframing

Thinking of an anger-triggering event in a different light can help defuse discomfort. For instance, “While my car was damaged as a result of this accident, at least I emerged unscathed.” Or, “Even though I do not want to engage in a particular activity, I realize that it is good for me in the long run.” Or, “The person making me angry is doing their best to help me. I can appreciate that.”

If the anger is provoked by someone or something outside of our control, consider this metaphor: Is it useful to become angry at the earth for not yielding sufficient produce? Few of us would become angry in such an instance. Should this not be the same when we become angry during other uncontrollable situations?

Letting Go

Asking whether a triggering event merits an angry response can help prevent or resolve such a response. For instance, people can ask, “Will this event matter an hour from now? A week from now? Next year?” If not, perhaps it is worth letting go of quickly.

Letting go can be accomplished in various ways. For instance, people can make a fist and imagine loading it up with their anger and then opening the fist and letting the anger go. Or, they can imagine putting their anger into a helium balloon and letting the balloon go. Or, they can tell themselves, “I will breathe out my anger with a long, slow exhalation.”

For anger that arose from a bad interaction, learning to forgive yourself or the person involved with the interaction can be healing. Forgiving does not mean forgetting what occurred. However, forgiveness can allow people to move forward and leave their anger behind.

Self-Calming

A calm individual is less likely to be provoked into anger. Regular use of self-hypnosis for calming, meditation, yoga, listening to calming music, or breathing techniques can help maintain a calm state, which can prevent anger outbursts. Stepping away temporarily from a triggering situation is also a great tool.

Consider which pot of water placed on a hot stove is more likely to boil over quickly: one filled with cold or hot water? Practicing calming techniques helps keep our baseline temperature down.

Asking "What’s Next?"

Rather than thinking about an event that triggered disappointment or anger, a great technique is to ask, “What’s next?” This allows the mind to reorient itself in a calmer fashion.

Channeling Into Action

The emotion of anger can be converted to constructive action, such as playing harder in a sports game, making music or singing, writing prose or poetry, painting, hiking in nature, getting involved in local or national politics, or even just talking about it.

Takeaway

Uncontrolled anger can lead us to take actions we may regret later, such as yelling or saying or doing hurtful things that cause changes that are hard to undo.

A Chinese proverb says, If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will save yourself 100 days of sorrow.

The tools discussed in this blog can help you achieve and maintain that patient state throughout your life.

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