Six Ways To Manage Your Anger

Do you often go off the handle when your wife or children do something wrong? Do you get angry at the slightest provocations? You ‘re not alone. It will surprise you to know that anger can also be a healthy emotion especially when it is channeled appropriately. We all release this emotion in response to a situation. However, how you respond to a situation will determine if you are managing your anger right or wrong. Charles Swindoll once posits that: Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to it.

The inability to control your anger is the reason why your health and relationships are hampered. To forestall all these, it is imperative to take note of these six ways to manage that anger when it settles on you.

Think before you speak

This happens to the best of us: we want to express our anger immediately with words that convey how angry we have been made to feel. This has been proven to be a foolish thing to do. Many relationships have been damaged beyond repair because a man expressed how he felt to his wife, his children, his colleagues at work or even to his subordinates. There is a great wisdom in keeping quiet and thinking through what you intend to say before you say it. So that you don’t say things on impulse which may have devastating effects. Do this when you are angry: count from 1 to 10. Doing this will enable you to compose yourself before speaking.

2. Avoid the ‘you’ statements

It is far better to personalize your expressions of anger than outrightly referring to the offender. For example, you could say: I’m not happy with the way you have done this or that rather than saying: You never do anything right! Statements such as this can trigger negative emotions from the other person.

3. Forgiveness is important

Another way to control or manage your anger is to forgive. Forgiveness is important in restoring relationships after a moment of tension or disagreement. Someone might say: forgiveness is dependent on the level of the offense. A minor offense should earn easy forgiveness while a more serious one should not. A saying goes like this: forgiveness is like a bridge and anyone who doesn’t forgive has destroyed the bridge on which he himself must pass. In a similar vein, an English Renaissance poet, Alexander Pope wrote : To err is human; to forgive, divine. So, forgiveness shouldn’t be given based on the minor or seriousness of the offense.

4. Find a solution

Rather than breathing down on any one around, it is better to channel your anger to finding a solution to the problem. After all, what has been damaged needs to be fixed.

5. Don’t hold a grudge

Holding a grudge when you are angry is inimical to your health. Whenever you are angry with what someone did to you, the best thing to do is to discuss the matter with the person in question. It could be your wife, a friend in the office or even your children. When you do this, you can easily diffuse that anger before it generates into something else.

6. Take time out

Taking some time out during a moment of anger does not make you weak. Rather, it is a good way to recapture your sanity. At the moment of anger, an average person is mad. If care is not taken to manage the situation, it can get out of hand.

Conclusion

There is a very thin line between anger and madness. An angry man is a potential madman. Anger that is not controlled will escalate and it will damage a lot of things. If you are a man who loves life and cherishes your relationships, you will manage your anger before it manages you.