When you feel angry, you may want to take it out on someone else. At times like that, you certainly feel hurt. Sometimes, you may hurt others unintentionally, or on purpose. Instead of having to hold onto your anger and (eventually) take it out on someone, you can express it in a productive way. Calm yourself and try to understand the anger and other emotions that arise. After that, you can express your anger in a firm way, which is unlikely to hurt the other person (either physically or emotionally).
Step
Part 1 of 4: Calming Yourself
Step 1. Recognize the physical signs of anger
When you start to feel angry, your body responds to that emotion through physical cues. By knowing how your body feels when you are angry and stressed, you can know when you are going to 'blow up' that anger. Some of these physical signs include:
- The teeth were tightly closed and the muscles in the body felt tense.
- Head or stomach pain.
- The heart starts beating fast.
- You start to sweat, even on your palms.
- Sweat started pouring from his face.
- Your body and hands are shaking.
- You feel dizzy.
Step 2. Recognize emotional signs of anger
Your emotions start to rise, giving rise to feelings of anger. Some of the emotional signs you may experience include:
- Feeling upset
- Sadness
- Depression
- Guilty feeling
- Disappointment
- Worry
- Desire to defend oneself
Step 3. Take a deep breath
Control your anger before you try to communicate or talk to other people. If you don't, you can say something that you may later regret. Take deep breaths to clear your mind and calm your body. You can also try the following steps:
- Inhale while counting to four, then hold for a count of four, and exhale while counting to four.
- Make sure you breathe using your diaphragm (abdominal breathing, not chest breathing). When you breathe through the diaphragm, your stomach will push or feel distended (you can feel it with your hands).
- Repeat for as long or as many times as needed until you feel calmer.
Step 4. Count to ten
If you start to feel angry and experience symptoms of anger, both physically and emotionally, tell yourself that you don't need to react immediately. Count to ten to calm down and give yourself a chance to think. Hold your reaction for a moment and take the time to calm your feelings.
Step 5. Go somewhere else
If you start to feel angry, leave the situation that triggered your anger. Take a walk. By not seeing the trigger for your anger, whether something or someone, you can calm yourself more easily.
Step 6. Discuss the problem with yourself
If you start to get angry, calm down and talk to yourself rationally about the problem at hand. Use logical reasons before you can't control your body. Before your anger takes over your mind, you can try "talking to yourself and calming it down." Even when you feel like you can't control this process, you can still have positive inner dialogue that can be helpful in training yourself to deal with and control your anger in a different way.
For example, you might say to yourself: “My boss scolds me every day. I find it difficult to deal with it and this makes me angry. Of course I can feel angry, but I can't let that anger control my life and ruin my day. I can deal with my boss firmly, even though he is aggressive. I would look for another job, however, in the meantime, whenever my boss scolded me, I could tell him that it was hard to understand when he was angry. If there's a problem, it's a good idea to have him talk about it while sitting down so I can come up with a solution to the problem. If he needs my help, I can help him if he can tell me without yelling or yelling. This way, I can stay calm and he learns to behave better.”
Part 2 of 4: Understanding Feeling Anger
Step 1. Rate the anger you feel
By giving an assessment, you can find out what events made you angry and the level of anger triggered by these events. Some events may just cause you a bit of annoyance, while others can blow you away.
You don't need an official anger scale. In fact, you can create your own anger scale. For example, you can scale from one to ten, or from zero to one hundred
Step 2. Keep an anger journal
If you find yourself angry quite often, it's a good idea to note down any situations that make you angry. You can note how much anger the situation triggered, as well as what else was going on at the time. You can also record how you react when you are angry, as well as how other people react to your anger. Try to think about the following questions as you do anger journaling:
- What triggers your anger?
- Rate the anger.
- What thoughts come to mind when you are angry?
- What was your reaction like? How do other people react to you?
- What was your mood like before the anger flared up?
- What are the symptoms of anger in your body?
- What's your reaction? Do you want to leave the situation, or show your anger openly (eg slam the door or hit something or someone), or say something sarcastically?
- What were your emotions like after the incident or incident?
- How did you feel a few hours after the incident?
- Can the anger or problem at hand be resolved?
- Recording this information can help you learn about situations and things that trigger your anger. After that, you can try to avoid these situations as much as possible, or guess when they will arise if they are unavoidable. In addition, journaling also helps you keep track of progress made in dealing with situations that make you angry.
Step 3. Identify triggers for anger
An anger trigger is something that happens or that you experience, that carries a certain emotion or memory. Some common anger triggers are:
- Inability to control the actions of others.
- Disappointment caused by others not being able to fulfill your wishes.
- Inability to control daily situations, such as traffic jams.
- There is someone trying to manipulate you.
- Feeling angry at yourself for the mistakes you made.
Step 4. Understand the impact of your anger
Anger can trigger bigger problems if it prompts you to be aggressive toward other people. If you continue to show anger towards everyday situations and the people around you, you will end up losing pleasure and satisfaction in life. Anger can interfere with work, relationships, and social life. You can also be reported to the authorities (even worst, arrested) if you attack other people. Anger is a very strong emotion and needs to be well understood in order for its effects to be overcome.
Anger can make a person feel entitled to justify their reasons for behaving in a socially irresponsible way. A person who experiences anger while driving, for example, may feel entitled and justified when he tells another driver to get out of his way because the driver accidentally cut his lane
Step 5. Understand the roots of your anger
Some people use anger to escape painful emotions. They get a temporary boost to self-esteem. However, if you use anger to avoid these emotions, the emotional hurt that was avoided will remain, and cannot be healed permanently by showing anger alone.,
- A person can get into the habit of using his anger to distract himself from emotional pain. This is because anger is easier to deal with than emotional wounds. In addition, anger also makes you feel more in control. In this way, anger becomes an endless way to deal with emotional vulnerability and fear.
- Often times, the automatic reaction to something is related to painful memories that happened before. Your automatic angry reaction may be something you learned from your parent or caregiver. If one of your parents (e.g. dad) is often angry about various things, while your other parent (e.g. mom) is always trying to keep your dad from getting angry, you have two role models for dealing with anger: passive and aggressive.. Both figures are actually counterproductive in dealing with anger.
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If you have been a victim of child abuse (or been neglected at a young age), for example, you have examples of how to deal with anger that is counterproductive (aggressive). While recognizing and dealing with these feelings can be painful, understanding what you got as a child can help you understand previously learned ways to deal with stress, difficult situations, and difficult emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger.
It is important to get professional help to deal with traumas caused by things like child abuse and neglect. Sometimes when a person recalls painful memories without the support of a clinician, he or she can unintentionally re-experience the trauma
Part 3 of 4: Talking About Feeling Emotions
Step 1. Don't passively express your anger
When you express anger passively, you're not actually dealing directly with someone who hurt or angered you. On the other hand, your desire to get back at him is manifested in a different way. For example, you then talk about bad things about the person in question without his knowledge or insult him at another time.
Step 2. Don't express your anger aggressively
Aggressive expression of anger is most problematic because of the potential for violence and the negative consequences of not being able to control anger. If this kind of anger occurs every day and cannot be controlled, your daily life can be disrupted.
For example, when you express your anger aggressively, you can scold or yell at someone, or even hit them
Step 3. Try to express your anger in a firm way
Expressing anger explicitly is the most productive way to express anger. Assertiveness can build mutual respect between you and the person concerned. You can still express your anger, but in a way that doesn't make the other person feel cornered. This way, you and the other person can still respect and respect each other.
- Firm communication emphasizes the understanding that the needs of both parties are equally important. To communicate assertively, present evidence that shows you are angry, without making accusations. Point out that the person's actions made you angry. Think only or focus on what you know, and not what you think. After that, ask the person in question if he wants to talk about the matter.
- For example, you could say: “I feel offended and angry that you laughed when I presented my project and I felt that you underestimated my project. Can we talk and settle this matter?”
Step 4. Recognize the emotions that arise
Understand how you feel. Think more specifically about what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. After that, try to pinpoint the emotions you're feeling, such as jealousy, guilt, loneliness, hurt, and the like.
Step 5. Use the statement or affirmation “I
…”. Talk about your feelings without judging the other person. By using an "I …." statement, the chance that the person concerned will not be defensive and will listen to you will increase. The "I…" statement makes it clear that you have a problem, and it's not the person concerned who has the problem. For example, try saying:
- “I feel embarrassed when you tell your friends that we had a fight.”
- "I feel offended that you forgot my birthday."
Step 6. Focus on yourself, not the shortcomings of others
You best understand how you feel, not what other people lack. Instead of blaming someone else for doing something that upset you, focus on how you feel. When you know how you feel (eg hurt), share those feelings. As much as possible do not make statements that corner. Only say things that relate to yourself only.
- For example, instead of saying "You're never at dinner again," you could say, "I'm lonely and miss talking to you over dinner."
- In addition, you can say, "I think you're being insensitive to my feelings because you just keep reading the paper and not listening to what I have to say."
Step 7. Give specific examples
When you deal with the person in question, provide specific examples that show what made you feel angry. Instead of saying, "I'm lonely," give reasons why you feel lonely. For example, try saying, “I feel lonely when you stay in your office late at night. I can't even celebrate my birthday with you."
Step 8. Continue to show respect
Show your respect for the person concerned. To show this, you can use words like 'please' or 'thank you' when communicating with him. This way, you can maintain cooperation and show respect for each other. When you want something, you need to express it in the form of a request (not a demand). Start by saying things like:
- “When you have free time, can you…”
- “It would be very helpful if you… Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Step 9. Focus on solving the problem
Once you've identified your emotions and begun to talk about them in a firm manner, you can begin to come up with solutions. With problem solving, you can handle and resolve existing problems in your own power.
- Calm yourself for a few minutes. Find out what emotions you are feeling. After that, start planning a strategy or approach to the problem at hand.
- For example, if your child comes home with a report card showing poor grades, you may be angry. Approach the situation with a solution, and not with anger alone. Talk to your child so he can spend more time doing homework after school, or suggest using a tutor who can guide him through his studies.
- Sometimes you have to accept that there is no solution to the problem at hand. While you can't control the problem at hand, you can still control how you react to it.
Step 10. Make sure communication goes smoothly and specifically
If you talk to and fro a lot or stray off topic, or make general, non-specific statements, anyone involved in the problem will be upset. For example, if your coworker is talking so loudly on the phone that you can't work quietly, you could convey your wishes like this:
“I have a request. Can you lower your volume when talking on the phone? I'm having a hard time concentrating on my work. If you could do that, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.” This way, you can speak directly to the person concerned, and you explain what you want clearly, and express it in the form of a request
Part 4 of 4: Getting Professional Help
Step 1. Try following therapy
Therapy is a great way to find new ways to deal with and express anger productively. The therapist will likely use relaxation techniques that are helpful in calming yourself down when you're feeling angry. The therapist will also help you deal with the thoughts that trigger your anger, as well as find new ways of looking at the situation. In addition, the therapist will help provide the ability to deal with emotions and communication exercises assertively.
Step 2. Join an anger management class
Anger management programs have shown a high success rate. The most successful anger management programs can help you understand your anger, provide short-term strategies for dealing with anger, and help build certain skills that are needed.
There are a variety of anger management programs to choose from. For example, there are programs devoted to youth, executives, police officers, and people of different ages or occupations who experience anger at different times, and for different reasons
Step 3. Ask your doctor about drug therapy
Anger is often part of certain disorders, such as bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders. Drug therapy that is undertaken will depend on the condition of a person who feels anger. In addition, taking medications to treat existing disorders can also help reduce or relieve anger that arises as a result of the disorder.
- For example, if your anger is accompanied by depression, you can ask your doctor about taking antidepressants to treat both depression and anger. If feelings of irritability occur as part of an anxiety disorder, benzodiazepine products (eg clonopine) may be used to treat the disorder. In addition to treating the disorder, benzodiazepine products can also relieve or eliminate the irritation that arises as a result of the disorder.
- Each drug has its own side effects. For example, lithium (which is commonly used to treat bipolar disorder) has a high potential for causing kidney complications. By being aware of and knowing the possible side effects of the drugs you are taking, you can observe the complications that may arise from the consumption of these drugs. It is important that you talk openly about the possible side effects of using the drug with your doctor.
- Also talk about addiction problems you have with your doctor. For example, benzodiazepines are addictive substances. When you're trying to get rid of alcohol, for example, the last thing you do is add another addiction. This needs to be discussed honestly with your doctor so he can determine what kind of treatment is most suitable for you.
