When you are angry,
you might feel like you want to explode at the whole world. During these times,
you are feeling hurt. Sometimes you might even hurt others without realizing
it, or you might hurt others intentionally. Instead of bottling up your anger or
exploding at someone, you can express your anger productively. Calm yourself
down and work on understanding your anger and other emotions. Then you can
communicate your anger in an assertive manner that will be less likely to hurt
the other person.
Rate your anger. Rating your anger
can help you realize the type of event that makes you angry and the degree they
make you angry. Some events might cause mild irritation, while others might
trigger you to blow your top.
- You don’t need an official anger scale. You can make your own; for instance, you can rate your anger on a scale of one to ten, or zero to one hundred.
Keep an anger journal if possible.
If you feel that you’re getting angry pretty regularly, it might help to keep
track of the situations that anger you. You can track the degree to which they
anger you, and what else was happening at the time. You can also keep track of
how you react when you’re angry, as well as how other people react to your
anger. Think about the following questions when keeping an anger journal:
- What provoked the anger?
- Rate your anger.
- What thoughts occurred as you got angry?
- How did you react? How did others react to you?
- What was your mood right before it happened?
- What symptoms of anger did you feel in your body?
- How did you react? Did you want to leave, or act out (such as bang the door or hit something or someone), or did you say something sarcastic?
- What were your emotions immediately after the incident?
- What were your feelings a few hours after the episode?
- Was the episode resolved?
- Keeping track of this information will help you learn what situations and triggers you have to your anger. Then you can work to avoid those situations when possible, or predict when these situations occur if they are unavoidable. It will also help you track the progress you make at handling situations that anger you.
Identify your anger triggers.
A trigger is something that happens or that you experience that brings on an
emotion or a memory. Some common triggers for anger are:
- Not being able to control other’s actions
- Other people disappointing you for not meeting your expectations.
- Not being able to control daily life events, such as traffic.
- Someone trying to manipulate you.
- Getting mad at you for a mistake.
Understand the impact of your anger.
Anger can become a big problem if your anger causes you to act aggressively
towards other people. When anger is a constant reaction to everyday events and
to the people around you, you can lose enjoyment and enrichment in our lives.
Anger can interfere with your job, your relationships, and your social life.
You can be incarcerated if you assault another person. Anger is a very powerful
emotion that needs to be understood clearly to overcome its impact.
- Anger can make people feel entitled to the point where they can rationalize reasons to act in a socially irresponsible way. People who experience road rage, for instance, might feel justified when they run someone off the road because that person mistakenly cut them off.
Understand the root of your anger.
Some people use anger to avoid dealing with painful emotions. They get a
temporary boost to their self-esteem. This also happens with people who have a
really good reason to be angry. But when you use anger to avoid painful
emotions, the pain still exists, and it isn’t a permanent fix.
- A person can become accustomed to using anger as a distraction from pain. This is because anger is easier to deal with than pain. It can make you feel more in control. In this way, anger becomes a chronic way of dealing with feelings of vulnerability and fear.
- Many times, our automatic reaction to incidences have to do with the painful memories of our past. Your automatic anger reactions could be something you learned from a parent or caregiver. If you had a parent who got angry about everything and one parent who tried to keep that parent from getting angry, you have two models of dealing with anger: passive and aggressive. Both of these models are counterproductive to dealing with anger.
- If you were a victim of child abuse and neglect, for example, you had a model of dealing with anger that is counterproductive (aggressive). While examining these feelings can be painful, understanding what you were provided when you were a child will help you understand the ways you learned to cope with stress, difficult life situations, and difficult emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger.
- It's important to seek professional help for life traumas such as child abuse and neglect. Sometimes a person can re-traumatize himself without intending to by revisiting painful memories without the support of a clinician.
Click Share button below if you love this post.
