7 Anger Cool Downs To Practice

Work environments can be places of stress for those who struggle to deal with anger in a reasonable manner. With today’s violent media modeling acts of horror in movies, the unbalanced person who has not developed good coping skills can act out a fantasy of getting even.

But getting even is not an answer. People need to control their anger and learn how to manage it. Here are seven cool down strategies taken from my small book on Breaking Free from Anger and Unforgiveness that has sold close to 100,000 copies.

Take A Breath

We are taught this as children and it works. Count to 10, breathing slowly and calming down your body. The key is to try and slow yourself down, relaxing the body.

Time Out

Get away from the situation but your self-talk matters during the time-out. You have to calm yourself, not rev yourself up with what may feel like an injustice. Self-talk like, “It will be OK. I can handle this. I need to be more forgiving. I am not a victim and can deal with this…” are the types of calming statement to tell yourself while you are in time-out.

Pray (...or meditate for the non-religious amongst us)

When you are frustrated and angered, pray.

Practice Restraint

Don’t act impulsively or meditate on ways to get even. Be the bigger person and use restraint. 

Write A Letter You Do Not Send

If you need an outlet for rage; write a letter that you don’t send. It may help you release those feelings and is a safe way to vent. But venting anger, often gives rise to more.

Violence

If you feel unfairly treated, misunderstood or victimized, think of ways to solve the problem without violence. Most times, you have options.

Media

Violent media do contribute to our desensitization of violence and do increase aggression. If you struggle with anger impulses, be sensible and don’t consume media that feeds that struggle.

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What coping strategies for anger do you have?

Anger Management

Anger is a natural response that we all experience. Some of us feel this emotion more frequently than others. Similarly, some of us control our emotions better than others.

Anger leaves a bad taste in your mouth in the sense that it transmits a lingering feeling of negativity. The angrier you get the deeper the emotional reaction and the longer the bad taste lingers.

Whilst it can be quite healthy to quickly vent one's angry feelings, this should be distinguished from a prolonged rant. The former gets the emotion out and leaves it there. You can then return to a comfortable state of equanimity and turn your focus to better things. The latter, however, has quite a different long-term effect. The ranting serves to anchor the negativity and embed it more deeply thereby ensuring that it is more difficult to shift and move away from.

When you are angry your emotional state is in turmoil. When you wish to control anger you have a choice as to how you go about achieving this aim.

You could approach the subject of overcoming anger from the perspective of changing your thoughts. Thoughts create emotions and these determine your actions. By choosing to change your thoughts to something that is more peaceful you will inevitably begin to feel calmer and more relaxed. The anger will shift along with the focus of your thoughts.

An alternative approach to overcoming anger is to focus upon your emotional state. Although I just said that thought creates emotions that in turn predict behavior, your mind and body interact in a two-way process. Just as mind works upon body the reverse is also the case.

When you are angry everything in your body feels tense. Everything is tight. Your breathing is shallower and more rapid and your heart beats at a swifter rate. Adrenalin flows and you are poised to fight. This is the state that anger creates.

You could beat a cushion and get the tension out that way. You could run it off. Or you could focus upon your state and intentionally shake your muscles loose, deepen your breathing and calm your heart rate.

Hypnosis provides a way in which you can control anger from both angles. Hypnosis is in itself a state of relaxation and so merely by using hypnosis you change both your focus and your state. With hypnosis you can create a state of relaxed awareness at a moments notice and step back from situations so as to see them from a different angle.

There is an added benefit to using hypnosis in that it provides access to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the part where automatic patterns of thought and reaction are stored. If your anger thermostat has gotten used to being turned up higher than you wish you could make suggestions to lower this threshold and hence not rise to the bait so swiftly or frequently. 

By Roseanna Leaton

http://www.positivearticles.com/Article/Help-To-Control-Anger/55040

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