When the Fires are Burning: Helpful Tips for Anger Management

Have you ever felt like your anger got the best of you? Perhaps your child made an innocuous comment, and suddenly you found yourself flying off the handle at them. Maybe a friend sent you one too many texts messages while you were dealing with a work crisis, and you said some things you immediately regretted.

Perhaps someone cut you off in traffic, and before you knew it, you were getting out of your car and putting yourself and the other driver in a dangerous and compromising situation.

When your anger overwhelms you and seems out of control, it can be terrifying. Uncontrolled anger not only affects your relationships, but it can have a detrimental effect on your overall health, too.

While anger may be a common and even healthy emotion which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves from physical or psychological threats, it inspires powerful and often aggressive feelings and behaviors. In this way, while a certain amount of anger is necessary for our survival, it’s important to control it and deal with it constructively. There are ways you can learn to manage your anger when you find yourself in difficult situations that incite anger.

Anger Management Tips

Being able to manage your anger is a valuable tool that is an immense help in your relationships. It’s useful to know what to do ahead of time so that you can curb your anger, but it is equally helpful knowing how to deal with your anger in the heat of the moment. Managing anger effectively will require making use of both strategies.

Some of the more effective anger management tips include the following:

Know the warning signs.

Have you ever paused to ask yourself what being angry feels like? When you know the sensations that typically accompany anger, you’ll be more self-aware and give yourself a chance to ponder your next move, especially if you pick up on the early warning signs that you’re getting angry.

When you are angry, you get a surge of adrenaline which leads to a faster heart rate, quicker and shallower breathing, tensing of the muscles throughout your body, and other tell-tale signs such as clenching your jaw and fists as well as tapping your feet.

When you recognize the warning signs of anger, that affords you the opportunity to interrupt and prevent yourself from doing or saying things that you may regret.

Know what triggers your anger.

If anger is an issue for you, it’s likely that there are certain things that trigger your anger. We’re wired differently, and what makes one person angry won’t ever cause a flutter with another person. For some people, long lines are a powder keg for angry feelings, while others are triggered by snarky comments, having their work disrupted, being caught in traffic, or being tired and hungry.

These factors and circumstances have a role to play in your anger, but the blame for your angry reaction doesn’t reside with them. It is up to you to keep your cool despite the circumstances and knowing what triggers your anger will help you approach those situations with an effective plan of action.

Knowing your anger triggers can help you practice some anger management techniques to calm you before you enter the store where you know there’ll be long lines. Perhaps you can better organize your day to minimize work stress and allow room for interruptions. You might decide to listen to a good audiobook on your commute so that it doesn’t feel so bad being caught in traffic. All this can help you deal with those aggravating circumstances more effectively.

Practice empathy.

The last thing you’re probably thinking of doing when you feel angry is to consider the other person’s point of view. When we’re in defense or attack mode, we put our energy toward self-preservation, which looks like digging our heels in with the conviction that we’re right and our reaction is justified.

To manage anger, it’s important to try to walk in the other person’s shoes and see the situation from their perspective. Take a look at the situation again, but this time take a moment to consider the events as they saw or experienced them. This can deepen your understanding of their experience and help you moderate your angry feelings.

Take a step back.

When you’re in the thick of a situation that’s quickly heating up, sometimes the best things to do is to simply take a literal step back and walk away for a while. Walking away gives you physical distance from the situation, and it affords you some time to think about what is happening. Having that room to think through things carefully helps you regain control and decide how to react appropriately.

Think before speaking.

Anger makes you feel like doing something, even if that something ends up being destructive. It may be best to allow yourself a few moments to collect your thoughts before speaking up. You can allow yourself room to calm down by counting to ten or walking around the block.

The other people involved in the situation can also take a beat to calm down and think things through, hopefully allowing reason room to prevail. Sometimes, the best way to handle a tense situation is to use humor to diffuse the tension. As long as it’s not sarcasm, humor can help you face what’s making you angry.

When you’re calm, you can then express your concerns and needs in a nonconfrontational but assertive manner without trying to hurt or control others.

Do something creative.

It’s possible to take anger and channel it into something more constructive. Some people choose to paint, while others will do a spot of gardening. For other people, singing helps them to calm down, and still others prefer writing poetry to express powerful emotions.

Know what’s happening beneath the surface.

Anger is a powerful emotion, but often anger masks other emotions. It’s important that you take a moment to consider whether anger is all you’re feeling, or if there’s other feelings beneath that anger. For example, sometimes anger functions as a mask to avoid feeling other, more painful emotions such as sadness, disappointment, fear, and embarrassment.

Recognizing what you’re really feeling will help you get to the root of the issue. If you were really looking forward to hanging out with your friend, and they cancel at the last minute after you’re all set to go, that disappointment might fuel anger.

Rather than lashing out, recognize that what you really feel is let down, and you can explain that to your friend. They will then know how their actions affected you, which will help in future with timelier cancelation or you holding onto plans more lightly.

Use relaxation techniques.

Anger affects you physically, and if you want to calm down enough to respond calmly, you’ll have to try and relieve those symptoms of anger such as fast heart rate and quick breathing. You can try to calm yourself down by using deep breathing techniques, or muscle relaxation.

Other people use mindfulness and visualization techniques that help you become more aware of your own body and help you calm your mind. For other people, listening to music, writing in a journal, taking a cold shower, or going for a run helps them relax.

Let go of grudges.

Anger can fester if you hold onto it. Because anger is such a powerful feeling, it can also crowd out other, positive feelings that could help you approach the situation with calm and understanding. Rather than holding onto anger, it’s important to learn to let go of grudges. Being able to forgive someone for how they wronged you allows you to avoid getting swallowed up by your feelings of bitterness and thoughts of the injustice you’ve suffered.

Forgiving someone allows you to relinquish bitterness and thoughts of retaliation. Additionally, forgiving someone can help you grow as a person as you learn to forgive others just as God in Christ forgave you (Ephesians 4: 32).

Try to find possible solutions.

In the fog of anger, it’s hard to focus on anything other than what’s making you angry. Sometimes, to overcome and manage your anger requires focusing on solutions instead of the problems. If you’re feeling overworked, perhaps you can talk with your boss about restructuring your week and your workflow, or to get more support.

Sometimes, what needs to change are your expectations, such as if you expect your young child to keep their room pristine. In other cases, it’s helpful to accept what you can and cannot change so that you don’t get stressed out and angry over things that are out of your control.

Give yourself time and get anger management help.

As with most other things in life, learning something new takes time and practice. You won’t necessarily meet with success immediately, but that just means you need to be gentle and patient with yourself as you acquire these anger management skills. Try a few of them out and see what works for you.

An additional strategy for managing anger is to get professional assistance from a psychologist, counselor, or other licensed mental health professional. You should seek help for anger issues if your anger seems out of control and it is negatively affecting important areas of your life.

Talking to a trusted person who’s not connected to the situation and unpacking your thoughts out loud can help you understand why you’re angry. A counselor can journey with you, helping you develop skills and techniques to change the patterns of thinking and behavior that might exacerbate your anger.

You can’t always avoid the things or the people that anger you, but you can learn to manage your emotional reaction to them. Anger can lead you to do regrettable and hurtful things if you let it, and the goal of anger management is to help you cope with your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a healthy and constructive way.

If you want some anger management support, contact a counselor at Saginaw Christian Counseling in Texas for an appointment to begin unpacking and addressing your concerns.