Angry people tend to curse, swear, or speak in highly colorful terms that reflect their inner thoughts. When you're angry, your thinking can get very exaggerated and overly dramatic. Try replacing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself, "oh, it's awful, it's terrible, everything's ruined," tell yourself, "it's frustrating, and it's understandable that I'm upset about it, but it's not the end of the world and getting angry is not going to fix it anyhow.
Be careful of words like "never" or "always" when talking about yourself or someone else. They also alienate and humiliate people who might otherwise be willing to work with you on a solution. Remind yourself that getting angry is not going to fix anything, that it won't make you feel better and may actually make you feel worse.
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Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it's justified, can quickly become irrational. So use cold hard logic on yourself. Remind yourself that the world is "not out to get you," you're just experiencing some of the rough spots of daily life. Do this each time you feel anger getting the best of you, and it'll help you get a more balanced perspective. Angry people tend to demand things: Everyone wants these things, and we are all hurt and disappointed when we don't get them, but angry people demand them, and when their demands aren't met, their disappointment becomes anger.
As part of their cognitive restructuring, angry people need to become aware of their demanding nature and translate their expectations into desires. In other words, saying, "I would like" something is healthier than saying, "I demand" or "I must have" something. When you're unable to get what you want, you will experience the normal reactions—frustration, disappointment, hurt—but not anger.
Some angry people use this anger as a way to avoid feeling hurt, but that doesn't mean the hurt goes away. Sometimes, our anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives. Not all anger is misplaced, and often it's a healthy, natural response to these difficulties. There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn't always the case. The best attitude to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle and face the problem.
Make a plan, and check your progress along the way. Resolve to give it your best, but also not to punish yourself if an answer doesn't come right away. If you can approach it with your best intentions and efforts and make a serious attempt to face it head-on, you will be less likely to lose patience and fall into all-or-nothing thinking, even if the problem does not get solved right away. Angry people tend to jump to—and act on—conclusions, and some of those conclusions can be very inaccurate.
The first thing to do if you're in a heated discussion is slow down and think through your responses. Don't say the first thing that comes into your head, but slow down and think carefully about what you want to say.
Anger management: 10 tips to tame your temper
At the same time, listen carefully to what the other person is saying and take your time before answering. Listen, too, to what is underlying the anger. For instance, you like a certain amount of freedom and personal space, and your "significant other" wants more connection and closeness. If he or she starts complaining about your activities, don't retaliate by painting your partner as a jailer, a warden, or an albatross around your neck. It's natural to get defensive when you're criticized, but don't fight back.
Instead, listen to what's underlying the words: It may take a lot of patient questioning on your part, and it may require some breathing space, but don't let your anger—or a partner's—let a discussion spin out of control. Keeping your cool can keep the situation from becoming a disastrous one. For one thing, it can help you get a more balanced perspective.
When you get angry and call someone a name or refer to them in some imaginative phrase, stop and picture what that word would literally look like. If you're at work and you think of a coworker as a "dirtbag" or a "single-cell life form," for example, picture a large bag full of dirt or an amoeba sitting at your colleague's desk, talking on the phone, going to meetings.
Do this whenever a name comes into your head about another person. If you can, draw a picture of what the actual thing might look like. This will take a lot of the edge off your fury; and humor can always be relied on to help unknot a tense situation. The underlying message of highly angry people, Dr. Deffenbacher says, is "things oughta go my way! Maybe other people do, but not them! When you feel that urge, he suggests, picture yourself as a god or goddess, a supreme ruler, who owns the streets and stores and office space, striding alone and having your way in all situations while others defer to you.
The more detail you can get into your imaginary scenes, the more chances you have to realize that maybe you are being unreasonable; you'll also realize how unimportant the things you're angry about really are. There are two cautions in using humor.
Controlling anger before it controls you
First, don't try to just "laugh off" your problems; rather, use humor to help yourself face them more constructively. Second, don't give in to harsh, sarcastic humor; that's just another form of unhealthy anger expression. What these techniques have in common is a refusal to take yourself too seriously. Anger is a serious emotion, but it's often accompanied by ideas that, if examined, can make you laugh. Sometimes it's our immediate surroundings that give us cause for irritation and fury. Problems and responsibilities can weigh on you and make you feel angry at the "trap" you seem to have fallen into and all the people and things that form that trap.
Give yourself a break. Make sure you have some "personal time" scheduled for times of the day that you know are particularly stressful. One example is the working mother who has a standing rule that when she comes home from work, for the first 15 minutes "nobody talks to Mom unless the house is on fire. If you and your spouse tend to fight when you discuss things at night—perhaps you're tired, or distracted, or maybe it's just habit—try changing the times when you talk about important matters so these talks don't turn into arguments.
If your child's chaotic room makes you furious every time you walk by it, shut the door. Don't make yourself look at what infuriates you. Don't say, "well, my child should clean up the room so I won't have to be angry! The point is to keep yourself calm. If your daily commute through traffic leaves you in a state of rage and frustration, give yourself a project—learn or map out a different route, one that's less congested or more scenic.
Or find another alternative, such as a bus or commuter train.
Stop Bottling Up Your Anger - Mindful
If you feel that your anger is really out of control, if it is having an impact on your relationships and on important parts of your life, you might consider counseling to learn how to handle it better. A psychologist or other licensed mental health professional can work with you in developing a range of techniques for changing your thinking and your behavior. When you talk to a prospective therapist, tell her or him that you have problems with anger that you want to work on, and ask about his or her approach to anger management.
Make sure this isn't only a course of action designed to "put you in touch with your feelings and express them"—that may be precisely what your problem is. With counseling, psychologists say, a highly angry person can move closer to a middle range of anger in about 8 to 10 weeks, depending on the circumstances and the techniques used.
It's true that angry people need to learn to become assertive rather than aggressive , but most books and courses on developing assertiveness are aimed at people who don't feel enough anger. These people are more passive and acquiescent than the average person; they tend to let others walk all over them. That isn't something that most angry people do. Still, these books can contain some useful tactics to use in frustrating situations.
Remember, you can't eliminate anger—and it wouldn't be a good idea if you could. In spite of all your efforts, things will happen that will cause you anger; and sometimes it will be justifiable anger. Life will be filled with frustration, pain, loss, and the unpredictable actions of others. You can't change that; but you can change the way you let such events affect you.
Controlling your angry responses can keep them from making you even more unhappy in the long run. Showing 1 - 4 of 5.
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Controlling anger before it controls you. The Nature of Anger Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. You are no different than a ticking time bomb waiting to go off any minute.
All it takes are a the right stimulus and b sufficient irk to be compounded before you fly into a rage at someone or something. Can you recognize the different anger states? What levels do you hover around on a usual day? How often do you enter each level?
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What is the highest level you have hit before? Regardless of your answer for each question, you should endeavor to reach Level 0, because that is your natural state of being. None of us are born with anger in our souls. Do you know your anger triggers? What makes you angry? What ticks you off?
What can you not stand? For the next two minutes, make a list of things that a irk or frustrate you e. Whenever you observe yourself feeling irked or angry, note the trigger and add it onto your list. Spot as many anger triggers as you can. When I did this exercise, I did it over the span of a week. I uncovered many triggers which I was previously unconscious of. Majority were day-to-day occurrences which I never gave much thought to.
Strategies for controlling your anger:
Things like unsolicited phone calls, running late for appointments , delayed public transport, and noise disturbances. Beyond day-to-day occurrences, I also identified deeper anger triggers. I also had a disdain for lazy people; people who skive and take the easy way out in life. As a person with excellence as my top value, I could not stand that. Doing the list was eye-opening. It made me recognize trends to things which would make me angry—usually of things which impeded my agenda or went against my core values excellence, passion, courage, truth, and authenticity. It helped me to anticipate situations which would set me off, hence pre-empting anger situations so I could deal with them consciously.
After creating your anger triggers list, drill into each anger trigger to uncover its root cause. Pen down the answer and repeat the question until you reach an aha moment surrounding your anger. For example, say after doing Step 2, you realize your anger triggers are a talking to rude people, and b seeing old people being mistreated. Here, you find out that your anger to rude people is linked to your childhood when you were rudely treated by your schoolmates. This is the underlying driver for your anger in this case.
Here, you found out that your anger with people mistreating old people is linked to times when you did not receive help even though you needed it. This is the real reason why you are angry at old people being mistreated above and beyond the other reasons you uncovered. It comes with an exercise which will help you release your external annoyances from within. As you drill into each anger trigger, you may wind up tracing it to a past event , as we did in the two examples above.
If so, it suggests that you still hold resentment and anger over that past event. This resentment and anger was never properly processed, which is why you continue to feel angry over related situations today, even though that original event is long over. This brings us to the next step, which is…. What are your grievances about that episode?
Perhaps you are angry that she did not live up to what she had promised. Perhaps you are angry that she did not fulfill the expectations you had of her. Perhaps you are angry that she is not the person you thought she was. Perhaps, just perhaps, the real reason you are upset with her is because you thought both of you shared a special bond and you wish she had placed more importance in the friendship to remember and honor that promise.
If you are angry with your friend for not living up to your expectations, ask yourself: Why do you have such expectations of her? Why are you evaluating her by those expectations? Are you being fair to her by measuring her against those expectations? If you are angry with your friend for not valuing you enough as a friend to live up to the promise, ask yourself: Is it true that she did not, does not, value you as a friend? Or was that just your conclusion?
How do you think she truly views the friendship? Challenge your assumptions and beliefs as you work through your grievances. Most grievances are the result of faulty thinking or simply missing the bigger picture.
- How to Deal with Anger: Your Gentle Guide to Removing Anger for Life | Personal Excellence;
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- Ami Je Veux TInviter Chez Moi (T 2) un Poete Se Raconte (French Edition);
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If you can uncover the missing link, you will no sooner be liberated of your unhappiness. Be sure to also check out Day Embrace the disparity between reality and what you want.