Anger Management: Battling One of the Deadly Sins

by Mahdi Munshi

Imagine you have your relatives coming to visit you who live far away from you and you took a day off from all of your work. You are cleaning and trying to make your home as hospitable as you can and everything is fine; until your boss calls you to say, “Mahdi, I know you took a day off but there’s this task that immediately needs to be done and it has to be done by an expert which is you!”. It is very normal to get unhappy at this; and, to add to that, when your relatives arrive, you find out that one of the little children is a huge pain ― crying and screaming at the top of his voice every now and then, constantly running and breaking things around you and bugging you to let him play video games while you are in front of your computer, doing your tasks you already are unhappy about. It is like, his only job is to annoy you and he is very good at it. You are struggling to keep calm and at one point, the annoying child unknowingly pressed the computer’s power button. You finally lose your cool, scream at him and make him cry and go back to his parents and obviously, make a very bad impression of yours in front of the relatives.

This is a story we all can relate to. We make bad impression of ours, take rash decisions, do unexplainable things and whatnot under the influence of wraith, a deadly sin discussed in Roman Catholic theology, or anger. While it is said that sometimes it is good for your mental health to let all your anger come out, it badly affects your social relationships and physical health too, which can also put toll on your mental health. So, in this article, let’s discuss about anger and how to control it.

What is Anger?

Dr Charles Spielberg, a psychologist and an anger specialist, says that anger is an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage. It is a common response to frustration, annoyance and threats. Anger can also be triggered by sadness and loneliness and some other special mental state. However, anger is a very natural and healthy, yet powerful emotion that has the capability to provoke other unusual mental states.

What is Anger Management?

According to Medical News Today, ‘Anger management involves a range of skills that can help with recognizing the signs of anger and handling triggers in a positive way. It requires a person to identify anger at an early stage and to express their needs while remaining calm and in control’. A lot of people think that anger management is the way to suppress one’s anger, but it is not. Anger is a natural emotion and trying to suppress it will leave a negative mark on mental health. Instead of avoiding the anger, anger management focuses on understanding the message behind the emotion and express it in a healthy way without losing control. It helps to control the emotion before leading to aggression, outbursts, or even physical altercations.

How to Manage Your Anger?

While anger management is often offered as a psycho-therapeutic program by the experts, there are a lot of things you can do yourselves to control your sudden burst of rage. We are discussing a few of them here.

1. Recognizing the Signs of Anger: While anger is mostly considered as a mental phenomenon, there are physical symptoms that help you detecting the anger within yourselves. Recognizing those symptoms is the first thing you should do which will definitely help you to ‘not being angry’. Some of the symptoms are:

a. Rapid heartbeat

b. Faster breathing

c. Tension throughout the body

d. Restlessness

e. Sweating and trembling

2. Take a Breather: When you can recognize the fact that you are getting angry, try to take slow and deep breaths and exhale them out slowly. This will slow down your sudden outburst to take rash decisions and might also help you to think properly by letting good amount of oxygen to your brain.

3. Countdown: Another way of slowing down your sudden outburst is to countdown (like, from 1 to 100; you can put some twist by throwing some maths too like, counting every 7^th numbers backwards from 100). This will slow down your heartbeat rate and your anger will likely subside.

4. Think Before you Speak: The very first response you are likely to provide after being angry is vocal. And it is that vocal response, that heat-of-the-moment speech, which often takes matters out of hand and make you regret later. Take a few moments to collect your thoughts before saying anything and it might make you avoid a potential disaster.

5. Think about your Happy Place: We all have a place (or places) that always make us happy (like being in an Arnab concert, playing football with your friends or walking through rain holding hands with your most favorite person etc.). Think about them, imagine like you are in that place right now whenever you feel the anger within you. This will help you calm your nerves.

6. Take a Step Back: If your anger is generated from a (heated) debate with someone, try to take a step back and think if this debate is worth your time and efforts. Ask yourself what you’ll get from winning this debate.

7. Take Timeouts: Constantly being engaged in stressful work might be another reason behind your anger. Take breaks time-to-time. A few moments of rest will also help you increase your productivity by preparing you mentally for what’s ahead.

8. Do Relaxing Exercises: There are many relaxation exercises you can utilize to reduce your anger: breathing exercises like yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, routine stretches etc.

9. Use Humor to Release Tension: Humor is now considered as a very important communication skill. Use humor to face what’s making you angry and diffuse it. You can expose yourself to comedies and memes to develop humor which will keep you cheerful and happy enough to reduce your anger. It is also an effective method of doing some damage control.

10 Express your Anger Indirectly: As I have written earlier, anger is a natural emotion and trying to suppress it completely will leave a negative mark on mental health. As it is extremely unwise to express your anger directly, do it indirectly ― write down in your journal, blog or other platforms. There is a good chance that what you cannot say, you can write, and expressing your emotions through words will help you calm down and reassess the events leading up to your feelings.

These are some of the ‘techniques’ you can follow to fight against abrupt bursts of anger and will certainly help you to ‘keep your cool’, but if you have an unusual anger issue, I strongly recommend to consult with experts.