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'How to control anger: 9 ways to release'
Dealing with workmen in the shop floor, driving through heavy traffic streets, waiting in long queues can be stressful and can trigger anger at the slightest provoke. Constantly being under such stressful routine and getting upset can have a destructive effect on health in the long run.
It is natural for anyone having sudden outbursts affects their personal and professional lives. But above all, it has a great impact on your health. Constantly getting exposed to such a frustrated mood can raise your blood pressure level.
Anger is a negative emotion that affects the growth of a person. Showing your anger may make you feel very powerful at first, but can have a long-term negative effect on you as well as others.
Anger is invisible; you often spend your time and energy in dealing with the ill effects of your outburst rather than self-examining the root cause of this mood change. One has to deal with anger scientifically at the grass-root level.
The good news is that you can manage your anger and channel this negative energy and convert it very constructively. Researchers are critically examining and working out what best works for managing anger. A study has found that you can choose healthy ways to thwart out anger before it does any harm to your health.
Related books on anger management - (Our picks)
The 9 ways to release anger is as follows:-
- Analyze your behaviour to recognize triggers and find alternatives when you start getting angry.
- “What am I really angry about?” May be you are unable to cope up with the money stress due to limited income.
- “What was really the situation that happened at the time anger?”
- “What is the problem? And who is involved in the problem”
- “Who was the person with you when you got angry?”
- “Try to recollect the environment when you got angry? Heavy traffic, were you drunk, was the other person drunk, what are the words that triggered your anger etc”
- “How can I sort out who is responsible for what?”
- “How can I learn to express my anger in such a way that will not make me feel helpless and powerless?”
- “When I’m angry, how can I clearly communicate my position without becoming defensive or attacking?”
- “What risks and losses might I face if I become clearer and more assertive?”
- “If I cannot control my anger, how can I express it differently”
- Try to restructure the thoughts and think before you speak.
- Change your surroundings to calm your anger.
- Take deep breaths to ease your anger.
- Find a suitable place to sit(preferably a quiet place)
- Relax your shoulders and your palm resting on your thighs.
- Concentarate on you breath.
- Take a deep breath so that your stomach gets filled.
- Exhale through your mouth slowly and hold for three seconds before starting the next breath.
- Practice this sequence for 3-4 times in a day.
- Get some exercise. Exercising helps you even better to cut back your stress and anger.
- Control anger using effective communication
- Internally calm yourself before you start the communication.
- Logically examine the situation.
- Respond in an assertive tone and not in an aggressive tone.
- Focus the discussion on the particular person and not to generalize.
- Communicate assertively without any angry gestures.
- Recite a comforting mantra
- Engaging yourself in an interesting and meaningful work is a good way to release anger.
- Explore the Unknown
- Write Morning Pages
- Keep an Idea Book
- Use Mind Maps
- Create a surrounding that sparks Creative thinking
- Write list of 100 solutions to one problem faced
- Find Your liking which helps creative juices flowing in your mind
- Create a Vision Board
- Visualize Your desires, and make it happen
- Engage in Good Creative Practices
- Use Humor and Laughter to Diffuse Anger
- Develop your sense of humor by watching funny movies, reading joke books, and listening to songs.
- Collect and keep a stock of jokes for all situations that can be of help to brighten the moment.
- Convert anger situations to humor seeing the funny side. Give these issues a spin and learn to laugh at them.
- Keep funny things with you that make you laugh or at least a smile. Objects should be something that lightens your mood as soon as you see it.
- Spend time with people that make you happy.
This is the first step to control your anger. You have to identify what your anger is about, notice the situation around you, and notice the thought that comes along with your anger.
Most importantly notice also the warning signals that you get as the aftermath of anger. Reasons for getting angry could be many like anyone touching your ego, problems at work or school, stress, traffic jams, money worries due to insufficent income, and relationship conflicts are some of the unpleasant situations normally trigger anger.
If you are having difficulty identifying when your anger erupts, try asking yourself the following questions the next time you get angry.Answering these questions might give you a clue what makes you angry and subsequently finding solutions to reduce your anger.
Recognizing triggers and finding right alternatives when you get angry, is the best way to stay calm, be well informed about your behavior pattern
This means re-organizing the way you think, or react when you encounter situations that makes you unpleasant. When you are angry, your thinking can get very wild and overdramatic. You utter words that are highly abusive with rough tone that hurts them.
The best way to tackle is to alter your thoughts when you are about to get angry. Take a few moments to gather all your thoughts before saying anything. Always keep watching your mood change, alert yourself the moment you are going to lose temper, and react logically. Logic defeats anger, even if anger is justified.
You might have observed that that the majority angry people are always demanding in their approach. They are very determined not to change their position and feel great joy in getting things done their way. However, fairly often the responses they get from their counterpart are disappointing.
Such people react very quickly instantaneously displaying their frustration, and disappointment using all sorts of harsh words. Angry people got to become conscious of their demanding nature and translate their expectations into desires. For instance, such people use "I demand", or "I must”. instead of the healthier, "I would like”.
To practice restructuring your thoughts before you speak anything, is the best way to avoid conflicts that might rage outbursts.
Sometimes our surroundings could also be the cause for us to trigger our anger.For instance, if you are in a meeting with your juniors, and you expect them to prepare some answers to the questionnaire that you have circulated, and if the responses from them is not satisfactory, not meeting your requirements; obviously, this example can trigger your anger. In such case, be calm; take your time to respond, just walk out of the room in the pretext of going to the washroom or to drink a glass of water. Return and tackle the situation smartly.
Give yourself a few moments of interval by taking some personal time from your immediate surroundings. This might release your tension and allow you start up afresh in the same surrounding.
Normally when you are angry you are not aware of the method of breathing. The entire body and mind are concentrated on the situation when you are angry. The breathing is very shallow and not complete. The frequency of breathing (number of breaths per minute) is also very high.
Shallow breathing restricts your diaphragm's full range of motion. The lowermost portions of the lungs — where many small blood vessels that carry oxygen to cells reside — always get short of the full share of oxygenated air. This state can make you feel short of breath and anxious.
Whereas deep breathing develops full oxygen exchange — that is, exchange of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Therefore, this type of breathing slows the heartbeat and can lower or stabilize blood pressure.
So when you are angry, try taking slow, controlled breaths. You inhale from your belly instead of your chest.This allows your body to instantly calm. Slow deep breathing may be an excellent method to relax.
You can follow this practice of breathing exercise:
There are good courses available on the web, that helps you practice this safe relaxation technique. Renowned yoga gurus, have also released CDs that guide your thoughts to serene places through imagination, thereby relaxing you. By listening to the soothing music, chants, and mantras, you forget yourself and picture yourself in a different world.
Hatha yoga, a sort of yogic non-strenuous postures, assist you stretch your muscles and calm the whole body.
Join some yoga class and study the various poses under the guidance of a yoga teacher and start an at home yoga practice as a daily routine.
Watch your breath when you are angry. It is normally shallow. Try deep breathing exercise to calm down immediately.
A study presented at the annual conference of the American College of Sports Medicine, provides adequate evidence, that people who exercised regularly had their moods controlled, and were less likely to get angry.
The results of the study conducted by lead researcher Nathaniel Thom, a stress physiologist, that "exercise, even a single bout of it, can have a robust prophylactic effect" against the buildup of anger.
The study revealed that when men did not exercise, they had difficulty controlling their raising emotions. But after exercise, their moods were under firmer control.
Research work carried by other scientists in the field of anger management revealed, that serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, probably played a major role, against the buildup of anger.
Nathaniel Thom also said that "Animal studies have found that low levels of serotonin are associated with aggression, which is our best analog of anger in animals," he said. "Exercise increases serotonin levels in the rat brain." Low serotonin levels in humans contribute to many mood disorders.
Hence, Thom said, "if you know that you’re going to be entering into a situation that is likely to make you angry, go for a run first."
Regular walking, jogging, bicycling are good and natural ways to scale back stress and anger. Exercise releases chemicals(serotonin) in the brain that will help you relax. In addition, exercise usually takes you faraway from a stressful situation, gives you time to think and help you generate more energy.
if you know that you are going to be entering into a situation that is likely to make you angry, go for a run first.
Sometimes, our anger and frustration caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives are often resolved amicably. Angry people normally fix a permanent image of others in their minds. This image could have happened on account of any previous incident. This image acts as a mental block and prevents them from further communicating with the other person.
The best thing would be to arrange a discussion with him or her in a very peaceful place. Allow the other person to say what they want to talk about their feelings and needs. Jointly, find an amicable solution benefitting both of you. If necessary, you could also take the help of a third person to intervene in your issues.
Turbulent past relationships derived from your childhood days can also lead to anger. If you have been in a hurting and dominating relationship in childhood days, there is every possibility of accumulating anger within. After a certain age, this shows up in the form of sudden outbursts, which will confuse people around you not knowing what triggered the anger.
Whatever be the reasons for anger, follow these effective communication steps and you can be under control.
Using effective communication skills to control your anger, gives you a chance to be happy because you learn to be assertive rather than aggressive.
The word “Mantra” derived from Sanskrit language which suggests “an instrument of thought”. It is a navigational instrument you use to tide over difficult times in life.
Mantra is a formula, word, prayer, often repeated multiple number times as an object of concentration.
Be it anger, stress, peace of mind, or whatever, we take the help of a fitting mantra to control our awareness and response.
By chanting a mantra repeatedly through meditation, or mindfulness, the vibration that is developed inside our body, because of the recital of the mantra, develops a soothing effect throughout our body helping us forget the situation we were before reciting the mantra.
You can also keep a list of mantras on your mobile for a quick reminder before any work, discussions, or important meetings that might develop stress or lack of peace.
I try the following mantras to calm me when I am stressed due to anger. Sometimes “Relax” or “The sky won’t fall”. I always move away from the spot and locate a silent place and keep uttering in my mind slowly, but I do it mindfully. This has worked for me and should definitely work for you too.
Reciting a comforting mantra repeatedly can ease out difficult emotions like anger and frustration. Matras are an effective tool that works wonders if practiced.
You fairly often act on ideas that don't seem to be your own. You normally see the situations happening around you and act imitating them. This is mainly because of the fast competitive pace of living.
As a result, you lose your ability to think creatively i.e. we make little use of the creative right-brain whereas the left-brain matters more and we use it more often. Prolonged exposure to such sort of living leads you to a meaningless and unproductive life.
Such a state develops stress and anger within you. Whenever you encounter such a situation, you ought to alert yourself and make a healthy lifestyle that has much scope for creativity.
The good news is that anyone can think creatively and tap into its power. Here are 10 ways to test your creative skills:
Making your life interesting and meaningful is a good way to be productive. This prevents frustration and anger in life.
Humor may be a good strategy to lower your stress level, dissolve anger, and provides you new ways to look at situations, and thus new ways to act. Often mood is elevated just within the process of striving to seek out humor in difficult and frustrating situations. Laughing at ourselves and also the situation helps reveal that little things don't seem to be the earth-shaking events they often seem to be. Observing the troubled situation from a unique perspective can make it seem less formidable and thus more solvable.
Do you have difficulty to create a sense of humor? Here are some tips that will help:
Humor makes you lighter free from burdens, inspires hope, helps you mix socially with friends and family, and keeps you focused, and alert. It also helps you release anger and forgive sooner.
Conclusion
Managing your anger doesn't mean you are never getting angry though. Instead, it is about how well you learn to recognize, manage, and communicate your anger productively without affecting your health. Anger management is not difficult to learn, provided you apply the skills appropriately. Even if you think you have your anger under control, there’s always room for improvement.
For many people, angry outbursts serve a purpose. Yelling at someone may get them to meet your demands. Or, lashing out at a partner may show them that you simply mean business. While being aggressive during anger you can get your needs fulfilled instantly, there are also long-term consequences to face. For example, your words might cause lasting damage to the connection with others or maybe result in its demise.
If you have been using your anger as a tool to persuade your needs met, you will take pleasure in learning healthier and more socially-appropriate strategies. Requesting help or speaking up in an assertive manner might assist you to get what you would like without causing more issues in the long-term. Ask your doctor about your anger management issues if you would like more assistance.
Experts recommend that anger and stress can be managed relatively easily if one were to talk and share their feelings with someone, either a close friend or relative, or a counselor who would help him resolve the tension and achieve happy results.
Over to you now
Right now, I wanted you to do one thing:
Specifically, I want you to leave a comment describing your strategy to reduce anger quickly.
For example:
- How do you manage your anger?
- Have you undergone any counseling session with an anger management expert?
- Any other specific points you would like suggest to make my above strategies still better? I’ll be glad to learn from you and add them as an update to this blog.
So, leave a comment please.
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