Anger Management Tips

These anger management tips will give you strategies to deal with your anger today. Stress creates tension, and anger can discharge this excess tension. But this relief is only brief and usually with costs to relationships, happiness, and business.

Looking back you may see plenty of times when you reacted, and said and did things which you later regretted.

You probably resolved to change your ways until someone pressed your buttons again.

You could have expressed your anger by:

• using plenty of colorful language or physical violence
• feel grumpy or easily irritated?
• socially withdrawing from your friends and family, or getting physically ill.

If you respond to anger in a way that is unacceptable to you, your family or colleagues, then these anger management techniques could be beneficial to you.

Most likely you will start to see things from a wider and calmer perspective.

1. A feeling of stress or pain,
2. a provocative situation, and
3. trigger thoughts that are associated with this provocative situation.

First there will be an associated pain or stress that with the anger. For example, you may have a headache, are running late, are stressed about a deadline at work, or be concerned about money.

Basically for anger to arise, there first needs to be tension in the body.

Secondly, a provocative situation is likely to trigger this anger. It may be that somebody cut you off on the road when you are running late or the kids are asking you for homework help while you are struggling to meet a deadline.

Thirdly, there will be an associated trigger thought that arises in response to associated tension in the body and the provocative situation.

This trigger thought usually relates to our own needs not being met, such as "he thinks he owns the road, I'll teach him" or "why isn't Jack helping the kids, he knows I am busy. Doesn't he care that I miss the work deadline"

In the first column put the stress or pain that you are feeling.

In the second, the provocative situation that is happening.

In the third put the trigger thought that is associated with the provocative situation.

In the fourth column put the behavior that resulted from feeling angry.

This tool will help you to understand what situations trigger your anger and the thoughts and pain that underlie this.

For example, a headache or relationship stress, or the frustration that you feel at work may cause your anger. Or it may be the direct result of a provocative situation.

Whatever the cause of your anger, it is important to identify the situation and the underlying thoughts and feelings that lead to this emotion.

By reducing physical tension in the body you can win half your battle with anger. There are many ways to reduce physical tension. These can include relaxation skills as:

• Progressive muscle relaxation. This is a physical method of tensing and relaxing the muscles.
• Meditation techniques. Meditation aims to calm the mind and by doing so can induce deep states of relaxation that trigger the relaxation response.
• Relaxation yoga. Practicing yoga, promotes the connection between mind and body, and results in physical fitness and mental well being.
• Imagery or visualization. Practicing relaxing imagery can help to reduce the tension in the body and calm the mind. I like to imagine a calming situation that I have experienced in the past - such as a walking along a beach, or a beautiful sunset.

Practicing these will reduce your tension and the chances that anger will be out of control.

I find that in provocative and angry situations my breathing rate increases, breathing rapidly from the chest.

By focusing on deep breathing from the belly, I counter the rising stress by activating the relaxation response.

Breathing from the stomach can relax you. As you breathe deeply repeat the word "calm" or "relax"

These breathing exercises can help to reduce the tension in your body when under stress or experiencing anger.

Whichever relaxation method your try, it is best to practice your relaxation strategies. Practicing relaxation techniques means that when you feel the anger rising, you have trained the body to respond with more control and have a well-learned strategy that you can use.

Thus, these trigger thoughts can leave you feeling helpless and out of control of the situation.

Generally, I find that challenging the trigger thoughts with simple questions such as “Did that person do that to me on purpose”, or were they more likely just careless and did not mean to cause you harm.

If you wait for the other person to change, then this can lead to more anger and stress.

Take responsibility for your feelings of anger and resolve to change the way that you think, feel and act in response to the other person or provocative situation.

Share your anger management tip (or ask a question)

Do you have some anger management tips or perhaps you have have a question about anger? Please share it!

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