Top Techniques to Manage Anger

Top Techniques to Manage Anger

This week, we decided to share our top techniques to manage anger. Finding the best techniques to manage anger is challenging. Furthermore, when overcome with this feeling of anger and rage, it is impossible to think about anything else at that moment. Most importantly, by the end of this article, we aim to provide you with our top techniques to manage anger.

What is Anger?

Understanding what you are feeling is half the battle when searching for the best ways to control it. For example, anger is an intense emotion. You usually feel anger when something has gone wrong or someone has wronged you. Therefore, having techniques to manage anger is essential. When you think this way, remind yourself that your anger is normal. It does not determine who you are as a person, but how you let it control you does. But, with our help, you will hopefully understand how to manage your anger in a more controlled way.

Anger only becomes a problem if it leads to outbursts and aggression. However, the positive side to it allows you to express negative feelings. Then, after saying these feelings, you can try to find solutions. But, most of the time, anger negatively presents itself.

What Does Anger Look Like?

The characteristics of anger can be both internal and external.

The internal signs look like this:

• Increase in muscle tension
• Raised blood pressure
• Increase in heart rate
• Spike in the adrenaline hormone
• Increase in body temperature

However, as explained above, anger does not look and feel the same to everyone. For example, you may feel more internal signs, whereas someone else that you know may express anger externally through physical symptoms. Physical signs are more noticeable on the outside and make it more known to other people. The external signs look like this:

• Raised voice
• Excess sweat
• Pacing
• Clenched jaw or fists
• Trembling body
• Frown on face

Anger is a prevalent and normal emotion that many people experience within their lives. However, should you feel an intense level of anger regularly, it can lead to health implications. This is why knowing techniques to manage anger is beneficial to everyday life. As already said, anger can lead to an increase in blood pressure and a spike in adrenaline. But, there are many more severe impacts it can lead to when feeling anger often. These include:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Insomnia
• Diabetes
• Substance abuse

So, let us get into what we think are the best techniques to manage anger.

Top Techniques to Manage Anger

Identify the Cause

Finding the cause of your anger is the first and more crucial step to managing your anger. Anger could stem from another emotion - maybe hurt or pain. However, it could be because of a disagreement with someone. Whatever it is, find the root of the anger and then see which are the best techniques to manage anger episodes.

Count Down 

You can count down out loud or in your head whatever works best. Typically, a good starting point is to go from ten and count down to zero. As a result, if you are outraged, you can increase this number to whatever you feel is necessary. Although it is simple, this is one of the most common techniques to manage anger and other emotions such as anxiety.

Go Outside

Fresh air helps with a whole host of emotions, including anger and is always underrated. Likewise, exercise helps calm nerves, reduce anger and replace that feeling by releasing endorphins. It can be as simple as going for a walk or riding a bike. Exercise techniques to manage anger are highly effective with many people, so it is worth a shot. Alternatively, if you need to let anger out, hit some golf balls, kick a football or hit the gym and lift some weights. It is whatever works best for you at that moment.

Catch Your Breath

You know, that tight feeling in your throat and chest? Yep, catch him! When your breathing becomes shallow, it gets worse the angrier you get. So flip it on its head. Take slow, deep breaths through your nose and exhale out your mouth. Try closing your eyes and choose a colour for the anger in your body. Then, on the exhale, imagine that you are breathing out your desired colour. Each breath in and out, more and more of that colour it released until you and back to yourself. This is great as these techniques to manage your anger help you envision the anger leaving your body.

Relax Those Muscles

When feeling a high level of anger in our body, many muscles are tense. This can be intentional or subconscious. A progressive muscle relaxation process allows you to tense and relaxes a range of muscle groups in your body, one at a time. So, when using these techniques to manage anger, imagine you are holding all of your anger in when you tense. Then, when you start to relax those muscles, picture all the anger releasing with each muscle as it rests.

Write in a Journal 

It can be tough to put your thoughts and feelings into words when angry. Most of the time, the anger takes over, and you end up saying something with the wrong tone or that you haven't thought about before speaking out loud. Obviously, this can be upsetting the person on the receiving end of your words, making the situation a lot worse. Using a journal is one of the most popular techniques to manage anger, as you can get your words out of your head but in a safe space. In addition, the journal won't get upset or offended by anything written in there.

It can also help if you want to let someone know how a situation made you feel, but you can't find the right words at the time. Writing your thoughts down gives you the time to think and process everything you want to say about what happened and how you feel and can lead to a more straightforward resolution.

You may think that these techniques to manage anger are too simple to be effective. But you would be wrong! Some of the best techniques to manage anger and other emotions such as anxiety and stress are simple! Most importantly, they are so simple that they don't require any equipment most of the time: just you, your thoughts and space to breathe.

Next time you experience anger, try one of our techniques to manage anger. It may help, or another strategy may be a better fit for you. So, please give it a go and remember, not everything is worth holding on to. It is okay to let go of things that hurt you, as you don't need that leftover anger anymore.

Written by Guest Writer

Nicole Foulkes