Anger Management Tips can be very useful if you are someone who easily loses their temper. If you are someone who quickly sees red or loses their temper over minor issues having strategies to manage angry feelings can be useful, as uncontrolled anger can have negative and far-reaching impacts on your life and relationships. For some people it might affect their job, for others their friendships, partnerships, and family relationships. Anger can also have an impact on your mental, emotional and even physical health. Studies show that being regularly angry can cause high blood pressure, headaches, insomnia, skin problems, heart problems, anxiety and depression. This article Anger – how it affects people can give you more details on how anger can affect you.

Below are three tips for dealing with unwanted anger

Identify what triggers your anger – this could be different for everyone. It could be the way someone talks to you, it could be someone’s behaviour, it could be that you only really get angry in certain situations or with certain people, perhaps alcohol causes your anger to be greater.

Once you understand the triggers for your anger you can begin to anticipate situations where you might be angry and plan for how you might manage them. You might also consider if there is something in your past that is contributing to the angry feelings now. Perhaps the way you were treated at school, or by a parent. If this is the case, then it might be useful to talk this through with a trained professional. If you would like to talk to Paul Carter about how he can help you with your anger management please contact him.

Count to 10 – this suggestion is often made about anger management, you might want to dismiss it, but it is very important. Anger is triggered by our amygdala, a primitive part of our brain that is there to get us ready to fight, flee or freeze. It is an immediate response to a situation. It’s very important because it keeps us safe and makes us act when we are threatened, it was particularly important when we were cave men being threatened by lions and bears.

However, When someone shouts at us now, we are not under threat of death, so responding by punching someone is not helpful. What we need to do is give the thinking part of our brain a chance to kick in and formulate a response rather than a reaction. To do this we need to give ourselves time. Counting to 10, going for a walk, taking a time out can all be really helpful strategies to give our anger a chance to diffuse.

Reframe your anger – Take a look at the situations in which you feel angry. Is there another way to interpret what someone is doing. For instance, if someone cuts you up whilst their driving in the city centre, it could be because they are rubbish drivers or it could be because they are lost, stressed and anxious and made a mistake.Seeing a situation from different points of view and challenging ourselves to consider what else might be going on can help us to again respond to a situation rather than react to it.

However, dismissing anger as a completely unwanted and negative emotion can be a dangerous move too. Being able to respond to situations rather than react is very important, being able to be assertive and express your needs and boundaries is very important and not being able to do that can also be damaging to your mental health. Working out how to deal with your anger and express yourself in an effective and appropriate way is an important skill to learn. Talking to someone about this and exploring your past triggers can be incredibly useful.

For more informaion about Paul please take a look at the About Paul Page, Frequently Asked Questions Page and The Counselling Services Page. If you would like to make an appointment with Paul for Counselling, Psychotherapy or Supervision, please call Paul on 07843 813 537 or fill in the form on the Contact Page, if he doesn’t answer he is probably in a session, please leave him a message and he will call you back as soon as he can.

If however you are looking for courses and more directive support please check out Citizen Coaching who off online and in person Anger Management courses. Or please take a look at our blog Anger Management & Paul Carter Counselling