Practical Advice on How to Manage Anger
If you are an angry person or know of someone who is angry most of the time, this article contains practical advice from an experienced professional therapist on how to manage anger that may help. To start and establish a baseline of understanding it is important to know that no person is born angry. We all have a range of temperaments and varying levels of tolerance. An angry response may seem to come more naturally to some people who seem to show from an early age that they have thinner skin and that they find that the provocations of life push them into red-eyed anger very easily. Others appear born with a more balanced temperament and find it easier to hold an even keel in the same situations. However, as anger is understood to be an emotional response, the degree of response is often seen as something that is learned. The good news here is that you can unlearn destructive behavior and relearn to act constructively in the same circumstances. No matter how thin your skin is. This is possible by us putting in the work it takes to displace unhealthy habits with good ones. Our relationship with anger was mostly taught to us through observing our family environment. If we grew up in a home that viewed anger as something to be neither seen nor heard, but rather that we could express anxiety, moodiness, or depressive symptoms then often we used behavior linked to these conditions to express our anger. However, the opposite is equally unhealthy. Some family cultures encourage the idea that anger needs to be expressed so that it does not fester. Studies demonstrate that losing your temper is like adding fuel to the fire and your anger increases, along with your level of aggression. Neither [...]
