How to Manage Anger

Anger is a natural emotion and an evolutionary necessity that humans need to ramp up aggression fast for survival. Anger helped early man to ward off or hunt down our own predators. The behaviour of violence toward prey, predator, and other enemies may never have occurred if man kept his emotions on a calm, even keel. Anger has helped man hunt successfully and protect kith and kin from threats. Cold anger may have also sparked sharpened intellects that plotted both offensive and defensive strategies for the good of the whole community.
As man’s social structures evolved, so have the use of anger. Anger was utilised as a powerful negotiating tool. As a bargaining ace, the emotion of anger proved generally advantageous to winning a conflict of interest, especially for those most blessed with physical strength and propensity toward physical violence.
Modern life with its system of laws, social behaviour and religious mores, however, frowns on displays of anger and violence, both which disrupt the civilised flow of modern life. Indeed, unwanted expressions of anger can damage personal and social relationships, cause law-breaking, inflict harm on others, and even harm to one’s self.

Anger Management

The emotion of anger includes a wide range of feelings from simmering annoyance to stark, white rage. As an emotion, anger is not wrong. It is how it is expressed that can makes it undesirable or downright dangerous.
While lashing out to express anger may not be a good thing, suppressing a natural emotion such as anger does not make a healthy alternative either. Indeed, it is a “damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t” acknowledge anger situation. One has to find that sweet spot by which to effectively manage anger in a positive and healthy way. In other words, we need to learn to how to handle our temper.
When our temper gets the best of us and creates trouble for us at work, home, and even in the area of our general well-being, it is time to learn some anger management skills. Anger does not just affect the angry person but also those around him. Anger can cause us to be physically, verbally, and psychologically abusive to others. In cases where children get into our angry crosshairs, we can effect some psychological injury on them, making it doubly necessary to watch our temper.
Handling our anger does not mean suppressing it. The keyword here is defuse...anger must be defused in order to manage it.

Defusing Anger

Recognize the Red Flags

Know that there are physical warning signs that clue us into your state of emotion, if we care to be more aware of them. These warning signs are significant because recognizing them can help us control anger and take steps to defuse it before letting the emotion spiral out of control. These are some signs of mounting anger:

• Sensation of increasing pressure in the head
• Heated and flushing face
• Increased heart rate
• Increased breathing
• Increased sweating
• Muscular tension especially around the jaw and arms
• Chest tension
• Shaking
• Anxiety
• Pacing

Know the Triggers

What can set off our fuses? Write them down. Even little things can trigger anger especially when stress is starting to get the better of us. A person who unintentionally ignores us, a restaurant running out of our favourite food, cold coffee, a small dent on the fender...recognize what specifically trips our wires so we can either avoid them or learn to trivialize these annoyances as not worth our angry time.

Time Out

Blow the whistle on ourselves when we encounter a foul. We need to get away from the situation by leaving the room, going out for a brisk walk, taking the car for a drive, or hiding in the bathroom as a calming technique. During this time out, we need to assess how we can talk about the situation later on and stay calm in the process. It is important to make time to get back and resolve whatever made us angry but we need to do so sans our ire.

Distract and Relax

When we start gritting our teeth and feel smoke rising from our ears, we need to shake our mind to focus on something else. Soothing music, talking to a friend, or scrubbing the oven spotless are examples of distractions that could defuse our tension and help us relax.
To take tempers down a notch or two, relaxation techniques can be very helpful. Focusing on deep long breaths and consciously relaxing each muscle gradually decreases feelings of stress and tension.

Hone Skills on Assertiveness

Sometimes people make us angry because they are not clear or are ignorant of what ticks us off. That is because we have not been assertive enough to draw clear boundaries.
Assertiveness does not mean aggressiveness or forcefulness. Assertiveness does not mean being intractable and uncompromising on our stand. That is being aggressive. When we feel angry or annoyed about something, being assertive about how we feel can channel our anger towards expressing it in clear and respectful ways. Being assertive means being able to stand up for one’s dignity and rights by :

• communicating plainly to others about one’s feelings, needs, and wants
• feeling comfortable about communicating those feelings and needs
• respecting other people’s needs and feelings also
• compromise or negotiate toward a resolution

Standing up for ourselves does not need us to attack or provoke other people unnecessarily. We also cannot remain passive, swallowing our anger, and letting things slide all the time. This is why we need to develop the skills to walk the line of assertiveness. Self-help books, seminars on anger management, and the like can point you toward honing your personal skills on being assertive.
When we start to feel angry, we should neither sit and stew nor go about in a rage. We manage our anger to get us what we feel we deserve. This way we gain control of ourselves and gain the respect of others.