How to Manage Anger and Stress

Mẹo kiểm soát cơn tức giận và căng thẳng

Start off with Keeping Your Cool

Thomas Jefferson famously said, “Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” – and he was right. After all, you don’t get to be the President of the United States by angrily overreacting to every little thing you don’t like or can’t control.

The Best Methods to Maintaining Your Composure

Maintaining composure is a skill like any other – and, as such, it can be learned, even mastered, by anyone.

The trick is not to let yourself crack, and if you do start to crack, to not let the other person see it. Now is the time to work on that poker face.

Here are a few other ways you can stay cool, calm and collected.

Don’t take things personally

The person insulting you doesn’t know who you are or care anything about you. They are trying to make things personal, but they can only do this if you allow them to.

Do not give in to fear

Have faith in your training, your colleagues and, above all, yourself. Trust that the situation will be resolved soon and don’t let doubts and anxieties sway you from that belief.

Think Before you Act Speak

Words are powerful things; they shape our reality and sculpt our self-image. The right words can enhance the majesty of great moments (“I have a dream”, “that’s one small step for man” etc) and the wrong words can wreak absolute havoc on a person’s life.

Using factual, polite and non-inflammatory statements can help to diffuse a situation, as can the subtle replacement of accusations with questions.

Your words will help to determine what a person thinks of you, so if you speak clearly and ask questions, you can often find a peaceful resolution to a potentially explosive situation.

Know the Difference Between Anger and Aggression

Anger is a feeling, an emotional reaction to particular stimuli, whereas aggression is a course of action brought about by that feeling.

Being angry once in a while is a normal and unavoidable part of the human condition. Aggression, on the other hand, is a decision.

Although aggression can take many forms, it is most often a conscious course of action taken as a result of anger. The most extreme form of reactive aggression is violence.

So if a person insults you, the feeling of anger that arises from it is more or less automatic, but the decision to retaliate in some way is an act of aggression, get it?

This is where the term ‘anger management’ comes into play, because if you know how to adequately deal with your feelings of anger, then you are far less likely to respond aggressively to people or situations that make you angry.

How to Control your Temper The reason these well-worn stories have never gone away is that they almost always ring true. Everybody is dealing with something, even (or perhaps especially) if they don’t feel like they are.

We have all lost our temper at some point, haven’t we? In that white-hot, rage-filled moment, we felt justified; maybe we still do, even in hindsight, and if you’re lucky it wasn’t caught on camera.

The skill you need to develop is to keep your cool and not rise to provocation when it is offered.

Breathing exercises work. Counting to 10 under your breath works. Meditation works. All you have to do is want them to work and work at making them work.

Understanding How to Manage Stress

The word ‘stress’ describes the feeling of being under pressure. It can be caused by any number of things, from oncoming deadlines and financial concerns to relationship issues and bereavement. It often has a cumulative effect, as stresses from one area of your life appear to ‘pile-up’ and combine with pressure from other areas.

If it isn’t properly dealt with, stress can lead to all manner of debilitating physical and psychological disorders.