How to Keep a Cool Head by Transforming Anger
Rather than rage, change your negative energy before it builds
You can transform your temper and manage challenges with a cool head, whether you’ve critical anger issues or want to reduce occasional irritability.
Anger can be helpful, giving you an incentive to improve your life, but harmful when you engage with it unwittingly.
Rage increases the odds of making damaging comments. While angry, you could upset your partner, boss, or children. You might meet trouble if you become angry with a stranger too: You do not know how they’ll react.
When your temper streams, you also damage yourself. Words spoken in haste are irretrievable, and you must live with the consequences.
Transforming rage will help you communicate well, improve relationships, and lower high blood pressure.
Why do you get angry?
Emotions often follow thoughts. When angry, you’ve already told yourself a story to justify rage. You feel offended, mistreated, or frustrated, and your negative energy seeks an outlet.
Perhaps you imagine you should seek revenge for a slight made against you. Then again, maybe you want to vent. The energy built wants to escape, and you have little control because things go too far.
Before negative energy builds, though, transformation and a better outcome are possible. Self-awareness will help you recognize when to change your energy, making sure it helps rather than hinders you.
Types of anger
*Fiery anger is explosive and triggered by an element in your environment, like a comment, behavior, or another event that taps into a painful issue.
*Negative self-talk creates slow-to-build anger.
When self-talk fuels anger
The stories you tell yourself about events matter. You might think you go over facts when you entertain self-talk, but you color everything with your perspective. Someone else could see matters another way.
You may create negative stories about events on autopilot if your mindset’s already negative. So, if a driver cuts in front of you, perhaps you’ll imagine they did so purposely and they don’t care about your safety.
With a more positive outlook, you will likely think the errant driver is anxious rather than thoughtless, and your inner narrative won’t make you mad. To stop rage from expanding, create a helpful story and alter self-talk.
Other signs you’re about to generate an anger-igniting story are physical, like a racing heartbeat, fast breathing, sweaty palms, and tense muscles. Recognize these signals before your anger rises and alter your narrative.
Add deep breathing to your line of defense, too. Take slow breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth, and your parasympathetic system will work on your behalf to increase a sense of calm wellness.
Also, relax your body. Drop your shoulders, unclench your fists, and slacken your jaw. Picture a peaceful scene amid nature and imagine the sound of a flowing stream to induce calm. Or tap into a happy memory.
When anger stems from triggers
Triggers are events that connect with painful issues. For example, if a man fears rejection, the slightest hint his new partner disagrees with him could be a trigger.
To uncover your triggers, consider your anger patterns. What makes you mad? What behaviors cause your hackles to rise?
Uncover your triggers, and you can prepare for times you’re liable to fly off the handle. Practice deep breathing and other methods to induce calm and stay in control.
If a careless driver is in front of you, for instance, and such events ignite your rage, pull over rather than continue your journey and give them time to disappear.
Or, if someone at work annoys you, focus on an attention-consuming project or take a coffee break. When you can’t avoid a trigger, count to 10, play relaxing music, or engage in another activity that aids peace of mind.
Meditate
Meditation is a helpful way to lessen the tendency to become enraged. You can train yourself to relax and gain time to change a negative story or curb anger via avoidance or a calming tactic.
Practice often, and you’ll develop a balanced attitude and access inner harmony when you meet challenges.
It’s not always healthy to get angry. Rather than let rage rise, transform it with meditation, imagery, deep breathing, and positive self-talk, and you will stay in control.
Bridget Webber is a writer and nature lover, often found in the woodland, meadow, and other wild places. She writes poetry and stories and pens psychology articles; her love of discovering what rests inside the thicket and the brain compels her to delve deep. She’s appeared in many leading publications and ghostwrites for professionals who can’t spare the time to pen compositions.
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