Taming the Beast

5 easy steps to manage your anger

Anger can be an overwhelming emotion. It drives away rational thought and puts undue strain on your mind, body, and spirit. Yet it is an emotion that we all have and cannot entirely get rid of. To be without emotion is to be a soulless automaton wandering around with no true life.

The good news is, you can learn to control anger. And it starts by acknowledging a simple truth:

You alone control your emotions

Others cannot make you feel angry without you allowing it to happen. Now, you might disagree at first. But step back and look with an open mind to see the truth.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, your supervisor berates you in front of your co-workers, or someone from an opposing political party hurls insults at you, do you get angry? The answer is almost always, yes. You feel anger rise up in these situations because you have been wronged. And yet, whether or not you allow that anger to continue, to consume your thoughts, or even turn into action is all up to you.

An unconscious reaction to a situation is something outside of your control. When something startles you, there is an instant feeling of panic and fear. These are internal emotions that arise in response to a specific stimulus. It is after that initial emotional response that you become responsible for allowing it to continue or to let it subside. The late G.M. Trevelyan describes this well:

“Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.”

It is up to you to rein in that anger and decide what to do with it. Holding onto anger and resentment will cause you nothing but pain and misery, while the person who first caused this anger isn’t suffering, and likely hasn’t given it another thought.

So, here is the very simple formula for getting your anger under control.

1. Acknowledge your anger. Don’t try to convince yourself it isn’t happening. You need to accept that you are feeling angry so you can deal with it.

2. BREATHE. Anger causes the release of adrenaline into your system, an increased heart rate, tension in the muscles, and on and on. Your body has a very visceral reaction when you get angry, causing physical reactions that may supersede your ability to reason. In order for you to gain control of the emotion, you must calm yourself. To do that, you need to take slow, deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Concentrate on the breathing, not the feelings, and continue until you feel your body start to relax.

3. Ask yourself, “Does it really matter?” When someone triggers an anger reaction, you need to think about whether or not it even matters. The car that cut you off was wrong, but they didn’t hit you or cause you to crash, and you may never see them again. So why hold onto that anger and let it ruin your day? Your supervisor berates you in front of your co-workers. In most instances, your co-workers will commiserate with you. Don’t allow it to make you so angry that you do something that gets you fired. If the mistake was truly yours, fix it. If the supervisor was wrong, use the processes in place within the company to deal with it. But do it with a rational mind, not an angry one. And finally, someone from a different political party hurls insults at you. Who cares? You already know that there are people who are on the extreme ends of political parties, and that is what they do. As with the driver of the car, you may never see them again. And most of all, in each of these situations, you need to consider the source. Do these people matter to you? Do you truly care what any of them think about you? And if you do, are their words so important and powerful that they should control how you feel? NO. Remember, only you control your emotions.

4. Move on. Once the incident is over, let it be over. Get control of your emotion and move ahead with your day. There is no need to continue holding on to that anger as it is only hurting you, not the other person. Find something else to focus on and leave the incident and the anger in the past. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “For every minute you are angry, you give up sixty seconds of happiness.”

5. Practice. Athletes workout to strengthen their bodies, increase their endurance, and create muscle memory for their techniques. So too must you train your mind and body to become calm. This practice can be as simple as sitting in a chair, closing your eyes, and taking 10 slow deep breaths each day. Or you can go further and learn about meditation and mindfulness, which will further enhance your ability to regain control of yourself and remain calm.

Getting control of your anger is a challenge, and will take time. I myself have struggled with anger for many years, and have used these steps with much success. It isn’t magic, and won’t make your anger disappear forever. But if you follow these four steps, you will find that you can control your anger and you will realize how trivial many things truly are. Don’t dwell on the past and re-ignite those angry feelings. Leave them far behind where they belong, you will be much happier for it.