Anger is a part of our daily lives. It can be a momentary annoyance or complete rage. Anger is totally normal in human beings and is also a healthy emotion. However, when it overcomes you or gets out of control it becomes destructive.
Anger can lead to health and social problems that can disrupt your life at work or home, and also ruin your quality of life. You feel helpless due to this powerful emotion, and it can make you unpredictable.
There are several biological and physiological changes that occur in the body when you are angry, such as the levels of energy hormones going up and blood pressure and heartbeat increasing.
Both external and internal events make you angry. You can be angry at people, and sometimes, you can show anger at specific events like a traffic jam or failing to achieve a purpose. According to Dr. Muhammad Imran Sharif, a well-known psychiatrist with eight years of experience, personal problems, bad memories, or social traumas can also contribute to anger.
Anger makes you aggressive and you respond to everything aggressively as this is a natural way. When we get attacked it allows us to defend ourselves and fight back. Therefore, anger in certain amounts is essential for survival.
However, when someone harms others due to a little anger caused by not a big reason, it creates trouble in society. To prevent these troubles, anger management techniques are important for people who get angry very easily.
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How to Control Anger
Here are some tips effective for you to stay calm when you become angry often and easily:
1. Recognize the Warning Signs
Some of our tips would work wonders to stay calm if you recognize the initial signs of anger. These signs are:
- Anxiety
- Tightness in the chest
- Pounding heartbeat
- Sweating
- Shakiness
- Being overcritical of someone
- Raising the voice
- Feeling argumentative
- Loss of sense of humor
Some people don’t accept that they are angry which makes it difficult to control angry feelings. When you acknowledge the feelings and recognize the signs it helps to reduce the intensity. I am angry or annoyed right now is the first step to resolving the angriness.
2. Identify the Possible Solutions
After recognizing the causes and first signs of anger, the foremost thing you need to do is to get rid of the issue at hand.
If you are getting annoyed due to talking to your friends or family members then stop talking to anyone and spend some time alone in the room. Additionally, if a delay in daily tasks makes you angry, make yourself energetic and perform the tasks within time.
While identifying the possible solutions to control anger, be realistic about things that make you angry and you can’t change. Instead of wasting your energy to change these things, try to compromise with them because it is among the best anger management techniques.
Why It is Essential to Manage Anger?
When you don’t do anything to manage your anger there are chances that you will yell at someone in a public place and damage the property. The inability to control angry feelings can also make your anger inward and impact your psychological as well as overall health.
Anger becomes a severe problem if you feel it often or intensely, or if you express it in immoral or unhealthy ways. Therefore, anger management is important for everyone, even for those who experience it occasionally.
3. Write It Down
For many people, writing different stuff can help to reduce anger in an effective way. Next time when you are angry, try to write a letter to your close friend and tell him why you are feeling angry and what solutions you find the best to control it.
After writing the letter, read it two to three times before sending it. Writing a letter would be an effective method to express your feelings and reading it several times will allow you to put things in perspective.
Some people find that they don’t need to send their letters because feelings subside after writing. However, make sure to overcome these feelings and send them within a possible short time.
4. Use Humor to Control Anger
Using humor can help reduce the severity of anger in a number of ways. For instance, good humor will help angry people to get more balanced perspectives.
When you are angry, call someone by their nickname or refer to him/her in a funny imaginative phrase. If you are at the office, imagine your coworker as a dirtbag and picture a bag in your mind that is full of dirt or amoeba.
In addition, you can also imagine yourself in a funny situation to control anger like imagine yourself as a king of ancient times and you are sitting on the throne. In this way, you will smile which would contribute to managing anger. Using humor is a simple answer to the question of how to control anger.
5. Focus on Relaxation
You can easily utilize some relaxation exercises to reduce anger. However, you have to find yourself what works best for you in this regard. Additionally, according to the experts, breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation can be common techniques to manage anger in an effective way.
Fortunately, you can quickly perform these exercises anytime, anywhere. Therefore, no matter whether you are angry at dinner or social gatherings, you can get rid of anger immediately.
In the beginning, you may feel that these exercises are not effective or may question why I am doing this. However, they would work wonders for anger management if you show patience.
In addition, You can also get relaxed by increasing happy hormones in the body. Read more about the effective ways to increase happy hormones.
6. Exercise can be Effective
Exercise is the best way to lower your anger. You can take a walk for a few minutes or around the block to calm down.
Start running immediately when you feel anger next time. Boxing can also be another way for managing stress effectively.
7. Repeat a Mantra
Repeat a phrase that will help you to fight angry feelings. You can repeat that mantra or phrase again and again after becoming angry.
These mantras can be: calm down, it will be OK, don’t worry, etc.
The Bottom Line
Anger can bring a lot of trouble in your life if you don’t know how to control anger. The above-mentioned techniques can be effective to manage your angry feelings. Additionally, you can also contact a psychologist to get more information about anger management.