How To Control Anger

Anger is a common reaction to many of the stressful experiences people have during everyday life. The stress of military life, such as the emotional toll of deployments and separations, can begin to affect your psychological health.

If anger is affecting your daily life, it may be time to reach out for help. Not handling anger properly can negatively impact relationships with loved ones or colleagues, as well as your overall health by increasing your risk of a heart attack, stroke, hypertension and more. Your health care provider can teach you how to manage anger, discuss how it affects you and help you gain new skills to respond to it more practically.

Anger is a normal feeling and can be a positive emotion when it helps you work through issues or problems, whether thats at work or at home.

However, anger can become problematic if it leads to aggression, outbursts, or even physical altercations.

Anger control is important for helping you avoid saying or doing something you may regret. Before anger escalates, you can use specific strategies for controlling anger.

Many respond with a fear of being hurt, fear of not being able to stand up for oneself, or fear of unjust or unfair things happening. These are all reasonable responses.

But anger is not aggressiveness. Anger may lead to aggressiveness, but when we feel angry, we can try to relate to it in a way that invokes feelings of wisdom, strength, courage and assertiveness.

Tips to manage your anger

Identify the triggers for your anger, such as environments and people.

Notice the bodily warning signs of anger: tightness in shoulders, increased heart rate, hot face.

Draw on a strategy that works for you. This could include slowing down your breathing, imagery, evaluating your thoughts, taking time out and changing your environment, or using relaxation skills.