Anger management: how to turn rage to your advantage

Anger is one of the emotional experiences of a person, which is closely related to cognitive processes, physical arousal, and aggressive behavior. In adverse situations, anger can spiral out of control and become an affect, interfering with a person's social functioning and overall well-being. Anger management - how to learn to cope with emotions on your own and when should you consult a specialist? You will find the answers in this article.

Why do anger attacks happen?

To more accurately understand the causes of anger, it is necessary to consider a number of factors that collectively influence the manifestation of anger:

Biological factors: a type of choleric temperament that is prone to anger. A mobile, strong nervous system reacts faster and more vividly to external stimuli.

Physiological factors : lack of sleep leads to levels of physical exhaustion, chronic stress leads to mental exhaustion. In states of neuropsychic exhaustion, a person reacts to external stimuli with negative emotions and maladaptive behavior, including aggressive behavior.

Psychological factors : dissatisfaction with work, financial situation, personal problems, obligations regarding the behavior of other people, inconsistency of the surrounding world with internal standards, inability to control and express anger - all this causes growing internal tension, which is just waiting for psychological release.

Anger in the structure of mental disorder . This individual factor affects different types of disorders: anger often accompanies personality disorders, bipolar disorder, relapses in eating disorders, chemical and non-chemical dependencies, and addictions. It can also act as a factor in the decompensation of psychopathology in loved ones.

EXPLOSIVE AGE

Young people are much more aggressive than adults, and young men are the most explosive.
The more youth there are in a country's population, the more likely conflicts are. Here, for example, are data for Russia indicating the percentage of youth to the total population: Moscow and Moscow region - 22%, Oryol region - 19.5%, Ingushetia - 30.8%, Dagestan - 29.8%, Chechnya - 28.9 %. American demographer Richard Cincotta, having analyzed the age composition of the population in countries where revolutions took place from 1972 to 1989, concluded that the outcome of the revolution and the system that will be established in the country after it depend on the age of the population.

Cincotta used a measure called median age. This is the age at which the same number of people in the country are older and younger. All countries where the median age was 25–35 years old at the time of the revolution came to democracy. Nine out of ten countries with a median age below 25 have slipped back into undemocratic regimes. If the median age is above 35 years, then the revolution most often does not occur.

What explains this connection? Yanir BarYam from the New England Institute for Complex Systems (USA) believes that an older population indicates that a society has developed social institutions and infrastructure.

For reference: the median age of the Russian population in 1991 was 33 years old, now it is about 38 years old. It is difficult to say what it was like in 1917, but according to the 1897 census, the median age was about 21 years.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/

https://www.fadm.gov.ru/regionmain/

First steps when dealing with anger

Step one. First you need to track how often, after an angry affective discharge, a person justifies his actions, for example:

• "She took me out"
• “This time he really asked for it”
• "We got what we deserved"
• “They had no right to express themselves like that, I answered them correctly.”

It is necessary to try to abandon self-justifying attitudes in order to further successfully work with anger

Step two : determine the degree of intensity of your own experiences. Often, people with anger problems downplay the intensity, which also makes it difficult to deal with aggressive behavior because intense anger limits volitional regulation of emotion control, increasing the risk of impulsive behavior.

Step three : Determine your anger frequency (how many times during the day you feel angry).

And one more stage in the initial work: prescribe ways to express anger (this is the behavior that a person chooses for psycho-emotional release). Write a list of actions (throwing things, breaking dishes, avoiding communication, physical violence towards an irritating object, obscene language, breaking fists until they bleed) and distribute them into groups: verbal (verbal) aggression, physical aggression, passive (hidden) aggression.

Emergency self-help methods

Let's look at emergency self-help techniques in acute situations.

Count to ten

When you can no longer contain your aggression and anger, tell yourself “stop” and slowly count to ten. Don't do or say anything else during this time. You need to restore the balance between your mind and emotions. The account will help you with this.

Most likely, after this simple action you will no longer want to destroy everything and hurl curses. Of course, the anger itself will not go away, but at least you will take control of it.

Distance yourself from the source of irritation

Anger rarely arises suddenly and out of nowhere. As a rule, it is preceded by other negative emotions: irritation, annoyance, disappointment. As the situation escalates, they snowball and eventually lead to an emotional explosion.

Therefore, try to leave the source of negative emotions as soon as possible, if possible. For example, leave the store if you are nervous about a long line, interrupt a conversation that is unpleasant for you, get off a crowded bus and call a taxi. Yes, this may cause some inconvenience, but it will save your nerve cells and prevent acute conflict situations.

Breathe slowly and deeply

During attacks of anger, breathing quickens and becomes shallow. Start breathing deeply, engaging your chest and stomach. This will help you calm down. Let each inhalation and exhalation last at least 5 seconds.

The ratio of carbon dioxide and oxygen will return to normal, mental clarity will return, and emotional intensity will decrease.

Move

When possible, neutralize anger through movement. If he finds you, for example, at work, find a secluded place and do a short exercise.

Forcefully clench and unclench your fists, squat, jump in place. This will help reduce the concentration of cortisol in the blood.

Write

When there is no way to express your emotions in a natural way - to shout, cry, talk to someone - entrust them to paper. As they say, she will endure anything.

If someone has seriously offended you in a way that provoked anger, calling them out loud may not always be the best idea. And you can express your indignation on paper without damaging your relationships or reputation. You don’t have to be shy in your expressions and cover up the offender with the most offensive words, if that makes it easier for you.

It is better to do this immediately after a conflict arises. So that aggression does not accumulate and poison you from the inside.

Another positive effect of this practice is that after a while you will be able to read what you have written and draw important conclusions. Emotions will subside - the situation will appear before you in a completely different light. You realize that you made a mistake and reacted inappropriately.

Use your sense of humor

Anger and laughter are incompatible emotions. The brain cannot experience them at the same time. Therefore, if you manage to find something comical in the situation and laugh at it, then the anger will disappear by itself.

You can imagine, for example, how a boss shouting at you grows horns. Or how people in line at the bank sing in chorus the song of the group “Hands Up”. You can simply remember a funny joke or a comical incident from life.

And the best option is to find a reason for self-irony and laugh at yourself. Very often anger arises from an inflated sense of self-importance. Self-irony helps to return from the imaginary throne to earth and look at the situation with an adequate perspective.

Look at the situation from the outside

Try to abstract yourself from the situation. Imagine leaving your body, standing back and observing what is happening, as if you were watching an emotional scene in a movie.

Here in front of you is your figure in a tense pose with a red face from anger. Not the most pleasant sight, is it? It’s unlikely that you would want others to remember just such an image of you.

While all these thoughts are running through your mind, you will not even notice how the intensity of your anger will decrease. This is because your brain will switch from experiencing emotions to thinking.

Direct your energy towards destruction

In a state of anger, we want to break, destroy, destroy everything around us. Give yourself this opportunity. You just need to do this in a socially acceptable way so as not to cause harm to yourself and other people.

You can take old dishes you don’t need and smash them on the floor with all your might. Or smash some broken equipment with a hammer. Just don’t get too carried away – it’s very easy to get the hang of it. Naturally, no one should be nearby.

A more harmless way is to tear the paper. Perfectly calms the nerves and helps you relax.

More than 100 cool lessons, tests and exercises for brain development

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I recommend reading Dan Dubravin’s book “Anger Management.” You will delve deeper into the topic of emotional intelligence, learn to control your emotions and competently manage such powerful energy as anger.

Anger management - exercises and techniques for doing it yourself

The most effective and fastest techniques for solving the problem of how to cope with attacks of anger - cognitive behavioral psychotherapy techniques, mindfulness skills, self-regulation methods

Before performing the exercises, it is necessary to understand the chain of anger, and to realize which segment of the chain the work of a particular technique is aimed at. It is important to select techniques so as to involve the development of all segments.

Sometimes the chain can look simple:

Trigger situation - angry thoughts - anger - aggressive behavior

Sometimes its appearance is much more complex:

Trigger - angry thoughts - emotions of indignation, anger, irritation - self-inflation - rumination - anger - aggressive behavior

This must be taken into account when choosing techniques.

Assess the possibilities: what will happen if you remain silent?

Often it’s easier for us to pretend that nothing happened. It’s worth thinking: why are you making this decision? Are you afraid of losing the love and sympathy of others? In this case, your irritation will accumulate and result in passive aggression. You will still lose the favor of those around you. Silence is golden, but in a different situation. Your silence makes the problem worse, confusing the relationship. Those who hold back their emotions suffer from excess weight, depression, stress and cardiovascular disease. Your silence is also a refusal to eliminate the cause of irritation.

Learning to manage emotions

Trigger : We make a list of situations that provoke anger, ranking them by intensity, from the most powerful to the least annoying. We write down strategies for weakening its effect next to each trigger, for example:

Trigger – children demand attention when I come home from work tired.

A way to ease the trigger is to go to a cafe after work, drink coffee, relax after a hard day and gain strength to communicate with children. Try to find a solution for each trigger yourself.

Thoughts and self-inflation : use cognitive therapy techniques, write down the pros and cons of each thought, correlate thoughts with reality, remove value judgments, develop an alternative thought for each angry one, introduce alternative thoughts into your life after the trigger.

Rumination : the so-called “mental chewing gum” that a person plays in his head over and over again. These are thoughts about the triggering situation that cause new waves of negative emotions.

Advice: learn to put off rumination, set aside one time for it during the day (for example, at seven o’clock in the evening), and not allow it to invade your consciousness at another time of the day.

Emotions of anger, anger, irritation: breathing techniques, Jacobson muscle relaxation, pleasant visualizations and other self-regulation techniques.

Aggressive behavior : use of coping cards. Cards are prepared in advance; alternative methods of behavior that replace aggressive ones are written on them. These cards can be quickly used when anger arises.

A DRILL

1. A sense of humor, or rather a benevolent attitude, allows you to see in any situation not a traumatic, offensive element, but a harmless, funny one. A well-meaning joke about the situation (!), and not about the participants, is the best way to defuse an impending conflict.

2. Remember: “He who is without sin...” After all, there were situations when you were wrong and your loved ones suffered from this? If you learn to forgive others more often, people will forgive you more easily. “The best cure for resentment is forgiveness.”

3. View conflict as a learning situation. Analyze it. In the process of interaction, in every possible way emphasize the similarities of your positions, not their differences. A German proverb says: “Even from the biggest swine you can get at least a small piece of ham.”

Other Anger Management Tips

It is very important to concentrate your attention on the first signs of anger (it is at this moment that the volitional component of control has not yet been weakened, which means that you can more successfully cope with the effect of an unpleasant emotion).

Be attentive to the factors that cause anger: it is always better to prevent the entire chain than to deal with the consequences

Watch how other people express their anger, focus on the consequences, note the most adaptive behavior for yourself.

You can deal with anger on your own or together with a psychologist.

Causes of irritability

Social provoking factors include deliberate incitement, propaganda of violence in the media, incitement of ethnic conflicts, racist calls, encouragement to carry weapons. The external environment can also provoke an attack of anger. A negative reaction occurs to:

• heat,
• cold,
• temperature difference,
• strong wind,
• noise,
• crowded public transport
• stuffiness,
• heavy smoke from cigarette smoke,
• unpleasant smell.

A person may also have a genetic predisposition to aggression. Irritability is provoked by various prejudices passed on from generation to generation.

In what cases is specialist help needed?

In cases where attempts to cope with anger on your own have failed. A person begins to use emotional and physical violence against close family members: child, wife, etc., in the case of a previously established diagnosis of a personality disorder or mood disorders, it is necessary to seek the help of a psychologist.

Irritability and aggression in women

Drinking alcoholic beverages can lead to aggressive behavior. More terrible is female alcoholism. The patient loses his mind, can commit any immoral act, sober up and not even remember what happened. Addiction is characterized by complete degradation of personality. Increased irritability in women can also be triggered by a craving for drugs. In this case, all a person’s actions and thoughts come down to searching for the next dose. Fear of withdrawal drives immoral actions. Excessive aggressiveness may be caused by the drug.

How does a psychologist solve the problem of anger?

The most important function of a psychologist , which cannot be achieved when working with anger independently, is to find unique personal reasons for anger, a person’s responsibilities, and deep-seated beliefs. Help him understand where and in what ways his boundaries are violated, build a step-by-step, competent work with anger.

Usually, after outbursts of anger and irritation towards a child, a feeling of guilt falls on the person, and the emotional picture becomes complex. A psychologist helps you understand these difficult feelings. Develops a personal strategy for solving a problem for a person, monitors results, and supports the person in working on anger.

It is also difficult for a teenager to cope with anger on his own, since during the period of maturation of the body, the psyche becomes mobile and unstable, and the area of ​​the volitional coping component is not yet sufficiently developed and cannot cope with the control function.

The task of a psychologist is to teach a teenager the skills of control and coping with anger. Explain the mechanisms of aggressive behavior. Role-play daily situations in which the teenager cannot cope with anger and aggression.

Impact on a person’s psycho-emotional state

To make a person angry and irritated, you don’t need to do anything beyond the natural. It is enough to regularly put pressure on his psyche, gradually irritating it. For example, a situation may arise in a family when one of its members stops bringing money into the house. Yes, the situation is not the best. Other family members can support their relative and say that this is not a death sentence, everything will work out and will be fine. But there is another way that can lead to anger. To finally bring a person to complete irritation and nervous exhaustion, those around you need to do the following:

• regularly remind the person of his problems and failures;
• demand from a relative what he cannot give at the moment, no matter how much he wishes;
• create quarrels and scandals.

A person, depending on how stable his psyche is, can look at all this calmly for some time. Negative emotions will accumulate inside, and unprocessed energy will explode in the form of an outburst of anger. For this to happen, other individuals do not always have to be provocateurs. When a person holds negative emotions within himself for a long time, does not speak out to anyone, and does not transfer negative energy into something else, an outburst of anger can happen even in complete solitude.

Anger management: cost and time frame for solving the problem

In the absence of concomitant mental disorders that complicate working with anger, this problem can be dealt with in 5-8 meetings with a psychologist, with the frequency of sessions being 1 time per week. The cost of one consultation in our clinic starts from 1000 rubles. When working with anger in the structure of a mental disorder, 10 to 15 meetings are necessary.

An appointment with a psychologist at PsiMedClinic can be made by calling +7 (3532) 45-95-03 or using the feedback form.

All people are prone to aggression, but not everyone succumbs to this feeling

Of course, we are all human. Only if some know how to restrain themselves, others give themselves permission to raise a hand against someone or damage property. Why are some people prone to violence and others not?

— The reasons for this are various, and there are quite a lot of theories about this. It is important to say that the model of human behavior is influenced by the family in which the child’s personality is formed. If from childhood he sees physical and psychological violence or is himself subjected to it, then there is a high probability that he will do the same or become a victim of such behavior in the future, says MAX consultant psychologist.

The inability to control is associated with the cultural environment of society and stereotypes. A good example was given by Galina Desyatova, head of the MAKS project, who joined the conversation. Remember: boys often have prints with growling animals on their clothes, and girls often have prints with cute animals. From childhood they show that girls should be restrained, but men can show strength.

“Let’s take another example,” says Oksana. — The children are going to kindergarten. They may use instrumental aggression to protect their toys. Even a minor fight is eventually considered socially acceptable. Boys are told: “You must be able to give change, you’re a man!”

Let's sum it up

Coping with anger without understanding its mechanisms and structure (chain) is not so easy. When working with anger on your own, it is important to remember that a single technique or exercise will not help you cope with this difficult task. An integrated approach is important: working through all components of the structure of anger.

If you cannot cope with anger on your own, there are outbursts of aggression towards a child, emotional and physical violence towards a partner, as well as if you have an established mental disorder, you need to contact a specialist for professional help.

Psychology, Anger Management

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Treatment of irritability

The Salvation Clinic provides treatment for irritability using proven techniques and individual programs, as well as modern pharmacotherapy. We have good personnel and technical potential; we can reliably establish the reasons that caused inappropriate behavior. We are recommended for our professionalism and responsibility. Other reasons to contact us for help:

• the possibility of treatment both in a hospital and on an outpatient basis;
• affordable cost of services;
• courteous attitude towards the interests of patients;
• 24-hour psychological support;
• assistance with hospitalization.

Contacting our center is a chance to change your life for the better, to know yourself, to achieve harmonious coexistence with the outside world. With the support of experienced mentors, you can learn to control your behavior and eliminate factors that provoke behavioral disorder.

Treatment of aggression and irritability

Aggression appears as a result of interpersonal conflicts. A negative attitude towards another person can appear at the mere thought that he may wish harm, although in reality this may not be the case. Negative emotions can accumulate. In most cases, it is enough to give a person the opportunity to simply throw out the accumulated negativity. Sports activities are good for this.

There are certain psychotherapeutic techniques that allow you to achieve peace of mind in hot-tempered, irritable people. It is important that a person learns good manners, is able to show resistance to stress in conflict situations, and can calmly react to basic things.

Treatment of increased irritability (senile)

Treatment of aggression in older people should be accompanied by the use of drugs that have a sedative effect. Family psychotherapy, support of loved ones and appropriate care are of no small importance. The staff of our clinic will be able to provide the necessary care around the clock. We take a responsible approach to our work and do everything possible so that our patients do not need anything and are able to appreciate all the benefits of a “dignified” old age.

Treatment of severe irritability

Sleep is the most effective. After a good night's rest, you always feel a surge of strength and energy. During sleep, the body's energy resources are renewed and metabolism is normalized. If you are very irritable, you should stop smoking and drinking alcohol. They only create the illusion of eliminating the attack of anger. It seems to a person that when he smokes, he calms down. In fact, the problem is only getting worse. Smoking causes oxygen starvation of brain cells and other vital organs, which can subsequently cause depression. This is a dangerous mental disorder. In some cases, patients exhibit suicidal tendencies. The patient is deprived of the ability to “see” the world in bright colors and enjoy life. He is constantly negative.

The specialists of our clinic will help you get rid of addiction. Classic treatment methods are used (cognitive psychotherapy, behavioral approach), as well as such radical measures as hypnosis, when the doctor deliberately intrudes into the patient’s consciousness in order to change his behavior patterns and habits.

Adjusting your diet is also important. Food containing various chemical additives (dyes, preservatives) increases irritability. Preference should be given to natural products.

Treatment of severe irritability in women

Strong irritability is more common among representatives of this gender group. Women are more susceptible to self-criticism and strive to achieve perfection in everything; it is important for them to please others. During psychotherapeutic sessions, you can achieve a rethinking of life priorities and direct aspirations in a more useful direction. After eliminating the provoking factor, a significant improvement in the condition will be immediately noticeable.