Regardless of where or how you learned your behavior, it is important to realize that it can be changed and that this change is up to you. Self-awareness will play a huge part in managing anger, not just of holding yourself accountable for your own actions, but also of your own needs.
When needs aren’t being met, there is a tendency to react in an unhealthy or destructive manner, instead of responding in a healthy way. This is especially true if you are in need of food or sleep, as these needs not only can trigger a survival response, but also impact our production of what our brains need to feel good.
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How we express anger is a learned response. There are several influences that may impact how we express our anger. We learn from personal experience, from watching others, from the way our family expresses anger, from the media, from cultural and gender stereotypes, from our role models and from so many other sources.
Anger management is about dealing with anger in a healthy, effective way. It is about using anger as a natural warning system, letting us know when something is out of balance, when a personal boundary has been crossed, or when we are hurt, and then using this knowledge to determine an action.
Learn to recognize feelings of anger before it becomes too intense or too big, and before you are about to express it in an unhealthy or destructive way. Recognizing bodily symptoms and external triggers can bring awareness to your arising anger.
Regardless of where or how you learned your behavior, it is important to realize that it can be changed and that this change is up to you. Self-awareness will play a huge part in managing anger, not just of holding yourself accountable for your own actions, but also of your own needs.
If you are in need of food or sleep, these needs not only can trigger a survival response, but also impact our production of what our brains need to feel good. Not all needs drive us into survival mode, but most unmet needs are surprisingly taxing.
Anger triggers can be thought patterns, emotions, physical discomfort, physical stress, physical or emotional threats, or external events.
Our thoughts and beliefs such as negative self talk, rigid beliefs, or misunderstandings.
Emotional triggers are emotions that seem to lay underneath our anger, or that our anger sometimes masks.
There are four things to consider when attempting to build self-control around our instincts:
Relaxing our bodies
Being present in the moment
Labeling our emotions and feelings
Taking responsibility for our reactions
Relaxing our bodies
Strong emotions often trigger powerful reactions in our body. Anger frequently shows up as tension and tightness in the body. As anger escalates and intensifies, the brain can read these physical responses as dangers, as threats. This can spur our fight/flight/freeze response. It also means our brain goes into survival mode, focusing on the physical functions necessary to stay alive and not on problem-solving. Relaxing the body, and releasing some of that tension, allows us to keep our anger from escalating. It also helps us think clearer, as relaxed breathing sends a signal to the brain that you are safe and that your life is not in immediate danger. With this ability to think clearly, you are less likely to impulsively react.
Being present in the moment
Being present in the moment also helps us build self-control over time. Many times it is our thoughts and beliefs related to the past or the future that cause us distress. We can get caught up in feelings related to a past we cannot change. Likewise, our brains can over-work with worrying thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about a future we cannot predict. This can keep us mentally spinning and can negatively influence how we react to present-day situations. Using practices such as paying attention to the breath help us stay present. One way to think of being in-sync with the present is that we have the ability to appropriately assess the amount of danger that exists in any given moment. Without the trappings of the past or the future influencing your thinking, you are better able to see what is in front of you, and thus better able to control your thoughts and emotions.
Labeling our emotions and feelings
Labeling our feelings and emotions is another important step to self-control. You have to have awareness of how you are feeling in order to label your emotions. Once you have labeled your emotions, you have taken the first step to reducing their power over you. By labeling your emotions, you create distance between you and them, making them something you feel versus something you are. Notice how it feels to say “I am angry” versus “I feel angry.” You are not your feelings and your feelings do not control you. With practice, you can watch your feelings roll in and then roll out, just like clouds moving across the sky. Sometimes it’s sunny, and sometimes it’s stormy, but your feet are firmly planted on the ground in either case. The action of labeling helps you to take responsibility for your reactions.
Taking responsibility for our reactions
Once you take responsibility for how you are feeling, you are also proving to yourself that you are in control. Ever notice that the same thing that greatly irritates you doesn’t seem to make a difference to another person? Or maybe the same thing that irritates you on one day doesn’t irritate you on another. It is not that other people who are unaffected by what bothers you do not feel irritations or anger or distress. It just means that they have learned not to allow these feelings to escalate, to take control of them, or to cloud their thinking. They take responsibility for their feelings, take note of what may be behind their emotion, and respond with a thoughtful action. In other words, they use self-control.
Take a moment and think back to previous exercises where we asked you to get in touch with your experience of anger.
See if you can allow yourself to remember these incidents in great detail. See if you can feel the sensations of anger start to bubble up. Practice walking through the above components of self-control.
While feeling angry, see what you can do to slow down your breathing and relax your body. Start to focus on the present moment, maybe noticing what you see around you or what you can hear. Label your anger, and take ownership of feeling angry.
Now think back to that incident and see if you can access a different perspective of the situation that made you angry in the first place. Write down the different thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations that came up for you while completing this exercise.
Continue to think about any unmet needs and how these correlate with anger. Think about relating unmet needs to other emotions. Maybe you are feeling depressed because you lack a sense of connection or partnership.
Can you think of how thinking, I’m sad, is similar to thinking, Sam is stupid. Here’s a hint: They both deal with unmet needs, and they are both criticizing, or judgmental, thoughts. (A less judgmental approach would be to say: I am experiencing sadness, or, Sam feels differently about the situation than I do.)
Don’t forget to breathe. Breathing is known to calm the mind and put a stopper on bodily reactions to things such as fear and anger. Breathing, and paying attention to your breath can immediately help you calm down in the face of anger.
That’s why we repeat it so often. Try it! Write down how focusing on your breath helps you control your response or reaction to conflict.