How many times have we been angry in life? During the development of our daily activities, we must respect certain norms imposed by society regarding modes of behavior in various situations. In this sense, one of the teachings that circulates corresponds to treating other people well in any area of life despite exposing ourselves to certain frustrations.
However, anger may end up dominating the situation and we respond through this emotion. Given this, it is important to know more effective alternatives to face these moments. If you recognize that your emotional management could improve in this area, the topic we will address here may be useful to you. Do you want to know more about this? In this Psychology-Online article, we will provide you with information about how to control anger and aggression.
Perform psychological therapy
Therapy consists of a space that makes it possible to identify and resolve personal conflicts. Faced with angry situations, we work on the emotions, thoughts and behaviors that produce angry and aggressive responses in the person. The goal of therapy is to provide tools that allow you to face unpleasant experiences without the need to appeal to anger as the main driving force.
Think before speak
If you are wondering how to control anger, this technique will help you. And when we are faced with a state of anger and aggression, we feel the urge to say words and perform actions that can harm other people.
Put thought before action or reproach It can prevent an uncomfortable situation from developing as well as allowing the intensity of anger to decrease. In this sense, when we reflect on what caused the anger we can understand the situation in a more global way.
Doing physical activity
Anger and aggression are felt in the body. In moments when anger dominates, it usually happens that we feel muscle tension since our body is rigid from some complex situation. On the other hand, an increase in heart rate accompanied by excessive sweating, dizziness, nausea and even vomiting in some cases is common.
These are predictable responses that can arise in a wide variety of situations depending on each person. In these moments, carrying out physical activity offers the possibility of release tension. Consequently, this will allow us to better cope with stressful situations since we can have an effective way to reduce stress.
Do relaxation techniques
Emotions have a relationship with the body, since it is possible for us to express through the body something that happens to us on an emotional level. Given this, there are techniques that allow you to achieve body relaxation through a series of steps to follow. One of the best known is , which consists of downplaying the unpleasant thoughts we have as well as emphasize the present. It has been shown that this technique provides efficient results when dealing with problems of anger and aggression.
Carry out artistic activities
Writing is a means of expressing personal feelings. Artists use different artistic forms to demonstrate their emotions. If you want to control anger, taking this into account, you can sing, write, dance, draw and/or paint in aggressive moments to release the pent-up tension. In other words, when we carry out an artistic activity we place the emotion in that circumstance instead of carrying it out with other people.
Reflect on the consequences of anger and aggressiveness
As we have already seen, anger and aggressiveness generate unfavorable effects for people who let themselves be carried away by emotions as a way of resolving conflicts. For this reason, the reflection about the possible consequences of facing situations through these emotions can help control them.
One of the examples of activities to work on anger in adults is to carry out the following reflection: we could resolve a moment of workplace discomfort with a colleague in a different way if we think about the fact that reacting with anger and aggression could lead to dismissal.
Get enough rest
It has been shown that there is a relationship between stress and/or anxiety levels with respect to the sleep we have. In other words, stress increases as the night’s rest is of lower quality since the levels of certain hormones linked to mood are affected. This accounts for increased irritability in the person. In short, sleeping a sufficient number of hours can help control anger and aggression.
Take deep breaths
Another exercise to control anger is to take deep breaths since, when we are angry, breathing is usually accelerated given the adrenaline of the moment. For this reason, appealing to deep, slow and controlled breathing can reduce emotional intensity of the situation. While it may be difficult to achieve at first, repetition of this technique can be gradually improved over time.
Next, we leave you our post so you can learn how to control anger and aggression using these techniques.
Change your approach to situations
When we feel angry, we usually see the negative side of situations given that anger and aggressiveness will monopolize the entire range of responses. In this sense, an alternative to control these emotions consists of modifying the focus we have on the moment.
For example, if faced with a job dismissal we think that said circumstance could represent an opportunity for a better job to appear, possibly anger and aggressiveness may subside. This advice can also help you if you don’t know how to control anger with your children or your partner.
Put role playing into practice
Role playing is a technique used in some psychotherapeutic approaches that consists of people represent characters referring to a particular situation of the patient. An example of this could be three people impersonating family members such as another person’s mother, father, and sister.
If there is a situation of anger about the inequalities that the person feels with respect to their own family, these three people could act as their family members so that other ways of resolving the conflict that are not through anger and frustration can be practiced. aggressiveness.
Appeal to humor
Sometimes, the best way to control anger and aggression is to take things with humor, which can cause us to change our perspective on events. In this way, it is possible soften moments of anger in front of other people to prevent our reactions from being consistent with the emotion that dominates us.
Practice empathy
If you want to learn how to control anger in an argument, you should know that empathy is essential, understood as the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes to understand their emotions, behaviors and thoughts.
Taking this into account, angry and aggressive reactions could be avoided if we reflect on how the other person would think and feel if we attacked them with words and/or actions. In this way, it would be possible to resolve conflicts in another way through .
If you found this post about how to control anger and aggression interesting, we recommend you read our article.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Fisher, M. (2018). The art of anger management. Finding serenity through meditation. Madrid: Siruela Editions.
- Morente-Oria, H.F. (2017). Anger control. Body expression in early childhood education. Institutional Repository of the University of Malaga.