5 Tips To Manage Anger

Anger belongs to us. It's a natural emotion with a legitimate place, and burying it for months on end is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. The trouble starts when it stops being occasional. Anger that runs hot all the time, at home or at the office, will wear down your friendships, your family ties, and your working relationships until there's little left. Chronic anger is also something clinicians treat as a sign of depression.

Why do some people seem to carry a short fuse everywhere? Why is one co-worker irritable from the moment they arrive? I've asked myself that, and I doubt I'm alone. Having worked with a wide range of people across very different settings, I keep noticing the same pattern: the ones who stay angry and on edge usually have something unresolved underneath. A strained marriage, a difficult family, a private fight with themselves. The anger on the surface is rarely the whole story. If you recognize yourself as the angry person in the room, the work is to sit with why. Stress, low self-esteem, and self-doubt are the three culprits I see most often.

Stress, by one dictionary definition, is a state of mental or emotional strain that comes out of situations that demand too much of us (2015). Put plainly, it's what happens when you get rattled or worry past the point of usefulness. If people in your life keep telling you that you sweat the small stuff, or that you blow things out of proportion, take that as data. You may be carrying more strain than you realize.

That strain doesn't stay contained. It shows up in your body, in your work, and very often in how you treat the people near you. Most of us vent stress by lashing out. The problem is how it reads from the outside: an employer may start to see you as unreasonable, co-workers may quietly decide you're unstable, and a run of poor evaluations can stall a career you've worked for. The fix is unglamorous but reliable, which is to find a release valve that works for you. Some people lift weights, some read scripture, some build a small daily ritual around it. And if you can't get on top of it on your own, there's no shame in asking a professional for help.

Low self-esteem may be the single biggest driver of constant hostility. When someone aims their anger squarely at a particular person, there's often jealousy underneath, fed by not feeling like enough. People who don't think much of themselves will sometimes build a hard shell, a tough act meant to hide the soft spots and fend off anything that feels like a threat to their image. What does that look like day to day? Bad attitudes, shouting, behavior that doesn't add up. Others learn to keep their distance. The clearest version is the person who abuses a partner or a child, belittling them, tearing them down, and nearly always doing it from a place of anger.

Self-doubt is the cousin of all this: not trusting your own abilities. People living with it tend to armor up the same way. Push them into a hard spot and the response comes out as outsized frustration, often delivered in a sharp tone. The people around them adjust by treading carefully, walking on eggshells so they don't become the next target. You see it with the intimidating co-worker everyone has quietly agreed to avoid.

The article How to Manage Your Anger and Frustration is a solid place to read more about why anger runs chronic and what to do about it. If you take two things from it, make them these: learn what sets you off, and learn how you tend to express it (2015). A few more practical approaches follow.

1. Find a coping mechanism. For some it's as simple as counting to ten. When I feel it rising, I'll count, or step into my office and put on music for a few minutes.

2. Deal with the real reason. Controlling anger usually means going back and settling whatever personal issue is driving it. Your behavior is yours to own. A counselor can help you untangle it. Until you've made some peace with yourself, you won't fully see why you keep pointing anger at certain people or situations.

3. Get a hobby. Give the energy somewhere to go: a boxing class, a stack of books, an afternoon out shopping, whatever you find genuinely absorbing.

4. Don't sweat the small stuff. Pick your battles. You don't owe a reaction to every person and every slight, and plenty of the time it isn't really about you.

5. Take an anger management class. It's a good way to practice saying what you think without trampling anyone, and to accept that sometimes agreeing to disagree is the win. These classes also teach you how to ride out stressful moments and handle people who are hard to be around.

- Heather Browning, MBA

References. Dictionary.com. Low Self-esteem. Retrieved January 19, 2015. Dictionary.com. Self-doubt. Retrieved January 19, 2015. Dictionary.com. Stress. Retrieved January 19, 2015. B., Kim. How to Manage Your Anger and Frustration. Retrieved January 19, 2015.