Managing anger

We all know what anger is, and we’ve all felt it: whether as a brief annoyance or as full-fledged rage. Anger is completely normal, usually healthy human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life.

You shouldn’t be at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.

The goal of anger management is to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes.

The nature of anger

Anger is an emotional state that that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage, like other emotions, it is accompanied by psychological and biological changes. Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person or event or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems.

Expressing anger

The spontaneous natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively. Anger is a natural, adaptive response to threats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive feelings and behaviour which allow us to fight or defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger therefore is necessary to our survival.  People use a variety of both conscious and unconscious processes to deal with their angry feelings. The three main approaches are expressing, suppressing and calming. Unexpressed anger can create other problems. It can lead to pathological expressions of anger, such as passive-aggressive behaviour i.e. getting back at people indirectly, without telling them why, rather than confronting them or a personality that seems perpetually distrustful and hostile. You should calm down inside. This means not just controlling your outward behaviour, but also controlling your internal responses, taking steps to lower your heart rate, calm yourself down, and let the feelings subside.  Simple relaxation tools such as deep breathing and relaxing imagery can help calm down angry feelings. Remind yourself that getting angry won’t fix anything and it won’t make you feel better and may actually make you feel worse. It’s best to find out what triggers your anger, and then to develop strategies to keep those 
triggers from tipping you over the edge.

Better communication

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. At the same time, listen carefully to what the other person is saying and take your time before answering it.

Using humour

Humour can help defuse rage in a number of ways. It can help you to get a more balanced perspective.