How to Control Your Anger

Anger is an emotion that varies in intensity, from mild irritation to strong feelings of fury, rage, or hostility, accompanied by a physical response such as a racing heart. Usually, our anger is triggered by something external, like the people or events in our lives. For example, you may feel anger after having an unpleasant encounter with a customer at work. Sometimes, our anger is triggered by something internal, like our worries, memories, or thoughts. For instance, I felt anger just thinking back to a time when I argued with a friend.

“I mean seriously what is her problem?!” I demanded.

The phone call with my friend didn’t start like this. We were calmly catching up about school and life until the conversation turned to an argument I had with one of our mutual friends a while back.

“You’re STILL upset about that?” she said. “YES, I’m still upset about it!” I replied. I proceeded to summarize the argument she already knew for over 10 minutes, feeling my heart race and my blood boil as I spoke. I really thought I had gotten over the argument, but that phone call reminded me that anger can turn even the most sensible of people into raving fireballs.

Of course, anger isn’t always bad. It allows us to express our negative feelings and motivates us to solve our problems. However, for some people, anger is more than just the occasional outburst. Anger is a problem when it occurs too frequently, too intensely, leads to aggression, and ultimately interferes with daily life.

Some people are angrier by nature, and others simply don’t know how to control their anger and express their feelings more proactively. Regardless, there are many strategies we can incorporate into our lives to keep our anger at bay, which I will share with you below.

How Can I tell if I’m an Angry Person?

My phone call outburst had my heart racing in the moment. However, anger also affects the way people think, feel, and act:

• Thoughts: You often think the worst of others or feel let down, believe everything is a big problem, feel like others are being unfair, have poor concentration, and think others cannot be trusted, among many other thought patterns outlined below.
• Feelings: Aside from anger, you may also feel rage, restless, uptight, on edge, and irritable over small things.
• Physical feelings: Experiencing anger comes with sensations like a racing heart, tight chest, churning stomach, weak legs, tense muscles, feeling hot or sweats, and a pounding head.
• Actions: You may be snappy, irritable, or unkind towards others, get physical (including slamming doors, throwing objects, or using violence), and engage in drug use (like smoking or drinking alcohol). 

Common Angry Thought Patterns 

• Taking it Personally: Angry people often take things personally.
  • Here is an example: “Jane didn’t talk to me at work today, so she probably hates me.”
• Ignoring the Good Stuff: Angry people tend to ignore the positive events, instead of focusing on the negative.
  • For instance, an angry person may focus on the one comment that made them upset in the conversation, ignoring the rest of the conversation that was going well.
• Perfectionism: Angry people may have high expectations of others and feel hurt when these expectations are not met, a common symptom of perfectionism (link to perfectionism article).
• Black & White: Angry people often think in all or nothing terms.
  • Here is an example: “Jane didn’t ask me how my day was today even though she knows I’ve been having a tough time. She is a terrible person.”

How to Control Your Anger

If you frequently find yourself engaging in the common thoughts, feelings, and actions of an angry person, your anger may need some controlling. Here are some research-based tips you can implement into your life right now to get your anger to a manageable level:

• Make a List: Make a list of your angry thoughts. Then, beside each one, update the thought so that it reflects what is actually happening. Try to do this exercise as soon as you catch the thought.
  • Let’s use the same example from above: “Jane didn’t talk to me at work today, so she probably hates me” can be updated to, “Jane didn’t talk to me at work today, but I don’t really know why. Maybe she was in a bad mood. Maybe something happened.”
• Practice Relaxation: Taking up relaxing hobbies like exercise, yoga, listening to music, watching television, or reading can help calm the physical symptoms of anger. You can also practice relaxation at the mental level by:
  • Engaging in mental imagery: picture a happy scene in your mind when you feel the anger rising.
  • Controlling your breathing: try to slow down your breathing when you feel yourself getting angry (practice: breathe in, two, three; breathe out, two, three).
• Address Angry Behaviour: In addition to making a list of angry thoughts, it is important to identify your angry behavior, like slamming doors or raising your voice. Once you’ve identified how you act when you’re angry, write down a list of different ways you can act that are more productive, like calmly excusing yourself from the situation to compose or taking a deep breath before reacting. The next time you feel yourself getting angry, try to put these into action instead.
  • Also, try to stop and think, “Why is this making me angry?” “Is this worth getting angry about?” and engage in positive self–talk like, “Getting upset will not help me,” “I have a right to feel hurt/annoyed/frustrated, but let’s keep this situation under control.”
• Communication: You can prevent misunderstandings in communication by:
  • listening more to the other person rather than saying the first thing that comes to mind or jumping to conclusions
  • trying to understand where they’re coming from if they sound critical or defensive, rather than immediately fighting back
  • expressing your true emotions, like feeling hurt or frustrated, rather than using unproductive and hurtful angry language

Here is a video by WellCast that outlines how anger affects your physical health, and provides some basic tips, like focusing on breathing and relaxing your muscles, to stop the automatic response to anger.

CBT & Anger Management Therapy

If you find yourself struggling to implement these strategies on your own, it may be helpful to see a CBT therapist to help you learn new tools, step-by-step, to gain better control over your thoughts, feelings, and actions. When you finally learn to take control of your anger, you’ll feel happier and healthier, and the people around you will thank you for it!