Anger management skills (Top 5)

The current blogpsot will be based on the question “What are anger management skills?”. We will discuss the various skills that are necessary for anger management. We will also learn the various strategies that enable anger management.

What are anger management skills?

Anger management skills are based on various skills that are necessary to decrease the level of anger that we feel due to our triggers related to anger provoking situations. Anger management also enables us to learn to mindfully control our anger reactions to a situation and instead of reacting try to just respond to the anger triggering situation with a mindful approach instead of an emotional and impulsive approach.

Anger management makes it easy for us to carry out our routine life activities without getting affected by the anger provoking incidents. Anger management makes it possible for us to practice healthy coping strategies to overcome negative feelings, to maintain healthy social skills, to carry out routine life activities, to have balanced interpersonal relations and to live a mindful life.

Anger management skills include the following :

• Identifying your triggers
• Deep breathing
• Take a time out
• Exercise
• Address your anger feelings
• Practice visualization
• Think of the consequences
• Practice mindfulness
• Practice forgiveness
• Increase tolerance
• Practice gratitude
• Journal your negative feelings

Identifying your triggers

Identifying your triggers is the key to anger management. By identifying your triggers early, there is a chance of knowing your anger early. Thus you will be in a better position to manage your reaction. Some of the common signs as a result of triggering events are raised voices, feeling hot, shakiness and irritability.

Knowing your triggers can also help you to overcome your anger by managing those triggers. At times moving away from the triggering situation or altering your response to control the situation can help in managing anger.

Deep breathing

Deep breathing exercise is recommended for anger management. Inhaling deeply while lifting your diaphragm upwards and holding your breath before exhaling through your mouth is called deep breathing. Often while angry, we experience a disturbed rhythm of our breaths, through deep breathing, we can gain control of our breathing system and balance it. 

Deep breathing is an anger management skill that improves blood circulation in our body and helps us to get a better connection between our mind and body.

Take a time out

Taking a timeout is a recommended anger management skill. Time out as an anger management skill refers to taking a break from the scenario that makes you feel angry or frustrated. If other people around you are a reason for your  anger try to explain to them that you need a few alone minutes to function back normally. 

Exercise

Physical exercise is an anger management tool that helps us to channelize our negative energies. Through exercise, we are able to balance the hormones and neurotransmitters in our body. Exercise also tends to improve blood circulation through our body and helps us to distract ourselves from reactivity.

Cardio exercise, aerobics, yoga and walking are all recommended for anger management. Doing exercise often makes us feel happy and present minded.

Address your anger feelings

It often happens that anger is a masked feeling for another unpleasant or negative feeling that we don’t feel like expressing. It is always recommended to know your anger feelings, the feelings that anger is masking for and how to better address the feelings lurking behind anger in a better way.

As humans, we are more comfortable in expressing anger rather than expressing any other feeling. We react with anger when we are feeling guilty, humiliated, regretful, remorseful, low, irritable and frustrated. 

The reason behind human beings being more comfortable in expressing anger as compared to other negative and unpleasant feelings is that we have observed the same in our environment. Our friends and family members have more often expressed anger than any of the other feelings.

Practice visualization

Visualizing your favourite place is another recommended anger management skill. Imagination often helps us to feel pleasure and happiness. Imagination is a way to feel relaxed and feel at your safe place while you are angry. 

Thinking of yourself with your favourite person at your favourite place and enjoying your favourite moments is often quite relaxing and distracting for many people.

Think of the consequences

Thinking of the consequences before acting upon your anger is a mindful strategy to control your anger. In this way we can change our reactivity to responsiveness and limit the negative consequences of our reactions.

Practice mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness is an anger management skill. It helps us to use wise mind instead of emotional mind or logical mind. We are able to function in a more present minded way and not let past or future life affect our decisions.

Through mindfulness we are more in here and now. We are able to give our full potential to the present life and enjoy pleasure.

Practice forgiveness

Practicing forgiveness can help us overcome our anger. Since anger is a subjective feeling and its intensity depends on our ability to let go of things in life. If we hold grudges in our heart against people and don’t forgive them for having bad experiences with them in life, we tend to make life more negative and thus we remain vulnerable to being angry.

Increase tolerance

Anger is a subjective experience. It is related to our threshold of experiencing the behavior of other people that make us frustrated or that are disturbing for us. An increased tolerance level tends to decrease our ability of getting affected and also enables us to be less reactive to anger provoking events.

Practice gratitude

Practicing gratitude is an anger management skill. Keep an eye on your blessings, count the positives in your life when you feel the most negative in life. In this way our focus will be on the blessings we have in life instead of having complete focus on negatives and believing that there is  nothing good in life. 

Journal your negative feelings

Journaling negative feelings in a dairy is a good way to vent out the emotional baggage and manage anger. Through diary writing and journaling, we are able to do a self catharsis of ourselves and get rid of anger feelings without letting them affect our relations or having them piled up for long in our heart.

Conclusion

The current blogspot was based on the question ““What are anger management skills?”. We learned various anger management skills. We also focused on each skill for anger management separately and discussed it in detail.

Frequently asked questions : anger management skills 

What are 7 ways to manage anger?

Following are the 7 ways to manage anger :

• Breathe
• Count to distract yourself
• Keep a journal or log about your anger
• Visualize peace
• Embrace confrontation
• Exercise to channelize negative energy
• Take some time

How do I control my anger outbursts?

• Your breathing becomes shallower and speeds up as you grow angry so it is always suggested to practice deep breathing
• Go walk around. Exercise can help calm your nerves and reduce anger.
• Relax your muscles. 
• Repeat a mantra that can help you with cue word relaxation
• Stretch your muscles
• Mentally escape the scenario by thinking of acting opposite
• Play some tunes and enjoy favourite music

What are the 3 types of anger management?

The 3 types of anger management are :

• Passive aggression
• Open aggression
• Assertive aggression

Citations

https://www.verywellfamily.com/ways-to-teach-your-child-anger-management-skills-1095010

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/how-to-control-anger

https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/anger-management-skills.pdf

Anger Management