Managing Your Anger

When you feel angry, it is important to stop your anger and choose new thoughts. The following are suggestions for managing anger.

1. Deep Breathing-When you feel angry, silently tell your self to "stop". Take some deep breaths. It is best to breathe through your nose and out through your mouth and replace your thoughts with calmer thinking. You may have to do this several times before you feel your anger lessening.

2. Engage in Physical Activity- Run, walk, bike ride, garden, do chores around the house. Physical activity gives you a break from the anger and a chance to think. Studies show, however, that engaging in activities such as punching the pillow when angry actually increases angry feelings. So it is best to engage in productive physical activity. While your exercising, work on new thoughts.

3. Self-Talk-use calming phrases that you can say to yourself over and over to help you calm down. Use the deep breathing technique as you say these phrases. Examples ; Take it easy, Slow down, Relax, Stay calm.

4. Monitor Your Anger- There are varying ranges of anger, from mere annoyance to outrage. You can learn to score your level of anger on a scale of 1 to 10 . You will then learn which types of incidents you find the most difficult to tolerate. You will begin to see patterns in the types of incidents that anger you the most. The higher the score, the more effort needed to calm down. You can use a notebook to monitor your anger and keep a record of the incidents and corresponding scores. By monitoring your anger and keeping a record, you will be able to see if a certain incident occurs a few times a week. If the technique you are using does not work, then you need to try a different method. On the other hand, if the score lowers, examine your thoughts to see what new perspectives you have given yourself. If the score continues to rise or stay the same, you need to examine how you are continuously making yourself angry.

5. Think of Past Successes- Everyone has times where they are tempted to get angry and lose their cool, but they do not. Think of such times in your life. It may be helpful to record that time in your notebook. How did you keep yourself form getting angry? What were your thoughts?

6. Humor- You can use your notebook to write humorous messages to yourself for when angry situations happen. If you can see the humor in some aggravating situations, your anger lessens.

7. Keep a "to do" List- Keep a list of things to do when you start to feel your anger rising. You can incorporate things from this article as well include some of your own ideas. Keep the list handy so you can retrieve it the moment you start to feel angry.