How to Control Anger, Frustration, and Rage

Anger, the way I see it, is just a basic human feeling. It isn't good or bad on its own. There are moments when getting angry is a perfectly healthy way to let something important surface, and short bursts of frustration are the clearest example. They rise, they pass, and usually nothing gets wrecked along the way. So the emotion itself isn't the trouble. It turns into trouble the moment you do something with it that hurts you or somebody else.

Then there are the longer-running kinds. Chronic anger and explosive anger both sit in a different category, and either one can bleed into every corner of a person's life. The chronic sort wears on your body and your emotions over time, and it often points to something underneath that you haven't dealt with, maybe grief you've packed away, maybe a condition that needs attention. The source varies. Learning to steer the feeling matters either way.

Seven things that help in the moment:

1. Step away. As soon as you catch yourself tipping past what you can control, leave. Find somewhere quiet. Pour a glass of cool water or make a cup of decaf tea. Whatever it takes to get out of the situation and settle for a few minutes, do it, and do it the instant you notice the anger instead of waiting for it to crest.

At work, if the tension climbs during a conversation with a colleague, excuse yourself and go outside. Office air tends to be stale and climate-controlled, so actual fresh air does something for you. At home you've got more room to maneuver. Don't shut yourself in the bedroom to sulk. Go for a long walk, a hike, a run. You're not tethered to a desk the way you are during the workday, so use the extra time to be alone with yourself and really decompress.

2. Breathe deep and slow. Long breaths bring your heart rate down and lower the heat in your body. Do ten of them. In through the nose, then out slowly through the mouth with your lips pursed, like you're cooling a spoonful of hot soup.

3. Picture something calm. Shut your eyes and put yourself somewhere that relaxes you. Holding a clear, focused image in your head makes anger hard to maintain. The emotion needs clutter to feed on.

4. Reach out. A real conversation with someone you trust gives you a way to sort through what you're feeling and take some pressure off. Pick a person who'll actually listen.

5. Shift toward the positive. Thinking in a more hopeful direction steadies your confidence and puts you in better shape to talk things through without it turning into a fight.

6. Laugh. Humor is a release valve for all of it, head, body, and the rest. It also swaps out the dark thoughts for something lighter.

7. Say what you feel, and say it well. Learn to tell the person who's frustrating you what's actually going on. If you only want to vent, say so up front: tell them you're not after advice, just an ear. If you want the problem fixed, say that instead, so they know how to pitch in. And put a clock on it. Give yourself a fixed stretch of time to get it off your chest, then stop when the time runs out. That keeps you from circling the same complaint for hours.

For the long-haul, chronic version, a few different tools apply:

1. Move your body on a regular basis. Exercise sends the good neurotransmitters flowing. A pickup game of basketball, baseball, football, soccer, whatever gets you going.

2. Rework how you think. Swapping out the thought that triggers you lets you look at the whole thing from another angle, and that reframing takes some of the charge out of the anger.

3. Write it down. A journal lets you dump the heavy feelings somewhere they can't damage you or the people around you. Keep it somewhere private, a locked notebook or a secured site online, so you can be fully honest in it. Let the words run.

4. Get help from someone trained for it. If managing the anger is beyond what you can do on your own, a therapist or psychiatrist can teach you approaches you haven't tried. A psychiatrist might prescribe something to even out your moods and keep the anger in check, while a therapist can help you spot your triggers and work out better ways to let the feelings out.

A few more things worth trying:

When somebody's dumping their own anger on you, let the words pass by you. Once they've run out of steam, you can either look back at them flatly and say "so," or give a small smile, say "you're absolutely right," and walk off.

Mind your mouth when you're hot. What feels true in the heat of it rarely matches what you think once you've cooled down and looked at the situation straight.

Put on music that settles you.

If your temper is quick and hard to rein in, get somewhere alone and scream into a pillow or a blanket, anything that muffles it. Yell outright if there's nobody around. It bleeds off the pressure.

Some anger is earned and does need an exit. The point is finding a useful way to let it out rather than swinging at whoever's nearby.

Ask yourself whether the person about to catch your temper actually did anything, or whether you're just using them to work off something that started somewhere else entirely.

Pour the energy into something you make. Writing, drawing, any hobby that pulls your mood up and gives the charge somewhere to go besides chewing on a problem you can't fix right now. Think about what that energy could build if you aimed it anywhere but at the anger.

Notice the strain you're laying on yourself when you're furious. Does it feel good? If the answer's no, change the thing that's causing it.

Meditation is a solid way to drain off the stress and anxiety that tend to come right before the anger does.

Kim B.