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When we are choked with rage and anger, it is difficult to immediately pull ourselves together. However, this must be done, because the escalation of destructive feelings will only aggravate the situation. Clinical psychologist Andrea Bonior offers several steps to help you quickly calm down and find the most reasonable way out of the situation.
Decisions we make in a state of extreme annoyance or anger often work against us. At best, they do nothing to solve the problem; at worst, they exacerbate it. While dealing with anger is not easy, there are ways to deal with its effects.
Confess your anger
Attempts to pretend that everything is in perfect order, although in fact we are blown up by a wave of indignation, not only will not calm, but can also be harmful to health. Many people think that acknowledging your anger is to start showing it in a way that is destructive to others, without being too on ceremony with them. However, you can also do this for yourself. “What is happening now is disgusting to me. But it’s in my best interest to solve the problem without doing something I’ll regret later. So now I will try not to do anything and not to say.
This self-talk will give you a little emotional respite and help you move into a more constructive state where you can think about how best to handle the situation.
Write yourself a letter
If self-talk doesn’t help, try to describe your feelings in detail. It would be better if you write by hand about what exactly worries you now, angers or scares you. As you write, you will begin to better understand why you are so anxious.
Perhaps your reaction is caused by a memory that you have already experienced, and you are afraid of repeating the unpleasant experience? Is the person who made you angry acting like someone with whom you have painful memories? An epistolary sketch, most likely, will allow you to look at the situation abstractly.
Transform emotions into movement
If we can control the impulses of our body, we can also control our emotions. Start with breathing exercises. Take a few deep breaths in and out, turning your head and arms around your wrist. In an emotionally heated state, these exercises will be more useful than an imaginary (or real) fight with the person who drove you into a rage.
To consolidate the effect, any activity that pleases you is suitable – running, dancing, jumping. This will not only prevent negative feelings from eating away at you from the inside, but will also effectively destroy them. If you feel like crying or wanting to laugh, help your body deal with the stress and allow yourself to express your feelings.
Think about the good things you have
If you can’t seem to calm down after talking to a colleague, or if you’ve been hurt by someone in line’s rude words, it might be a good time to start thinking about what you can be grateful for. Think of the people who love you and are dear to you. You have a home, life plans, you are healthy. And this is much more important than those events that do not affect your future. Look at the picture of your life more voluminously, and you will see how insignificant this episode is.
Try to forgive
Try to imagine the circumstances of the life of a person who was rude and unfair to you. Probably, his life is devoid of psychological comfort and aggression is a reaction to stress and dissatisfaction with life. Think of him with compassion. This will help you feel like a person who is in control of the situation, and not being manipulated by others.
If you have a loved one, a heart-to-heart conversation can help sort out your feelings. However, be careful in choosing a confidant – by no means everyone will be able to listen, remaining delicate and not hurting with careless words. You may suddenly feel that it is difficult or uninteresting for the interlocutor to touch on this topic.
Someone, on the contrary, can only inflame your feelings by showing interest in an unusual story, but by no means sympathizing with you. All this can cause even more pain.
Take care of yourself
Sometimes it seems that we have solved painful problems, but the consequences of our experiences haunt us in the form of irritability, insomnia, and sometimes sluggish depression, which we do not attach importance to. Often these symptoms of the body do not leave us if the experience was connected with something deeper and more painful than the formal episode that we experienced. In this case, the help of a professional can help us find the true causes and psychological traps.
About the Expert: Andrea Bonior is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of addictions.