8 Point Plan
1. Recognising Stress
Recognising that stress is a major contributor and underlying cause of anger is an important first step. Learning how to reduce stress in your life will inevitably lead to less anger. How can you reduce stress? Well first you must identify what areas of your life are causing you stress from there it is a matter of working out how to minimise it. Stress is when a person perceives that the pressures or demands they are experiencing exceed their ability to cope.
2. Tolerance
Learning to be tolerant of other people by seeing things from their perspective will reduce the levels of irritation you may feel building up. This involves realising that everybody has a point of view and they are equally as entitled to make it as you are.
3. Communication Techniques
You can learn to choose how you respond to any situation instead of having a seemingly uncontrollable reaction. Make the decision that the next time you are in a situation that usually sets you off that you will decided to react differently.
4. Retreat and Think Things Over
If you find yourself so angry that you feel you are losing control, it is best to walk away and cool down. Also, if you are confronted by an angry person remember that you are only validating this negative emotion if you stay and argue with them. Just keep you own cool, politely say “I’ll talk to you when you are calmer” and walk away.
5. Positive Thought Techniques
Changing your way of thinking is not as difficult as it would seem. Humans are hard wired to learn at all stages of our lives. Repeating an outcome to yourself when in a relaxed frame of mind can have amazing effects. The trick here is to not wait until you are in a rage before trying to get your thoughts under control. You can find out more about this here.
6. Assertiveness Training
There are many confident and successful people who benefit greatly from receiving some assertiveness training and in some companies staff are sent on courses to receive just that. These are skills that you can then carry with you throughout your life and they are a great way of negotiating with another person to arrive at an amicable solution to a problem. Therefore these kinds of skills would be very beneficial to someone who is having a difficult time with their communication with others. You can find out more about Assertiveness Training here.
7. Identify if you need to seek Professional Help
In certain circumstances you may feel that you need some professional guidance and that the techniques outlined in this page will just not be effective enough. In this case you should either go to you GP or make an appointment with a Psychologist. These professionals will be able to direct you to the help you need. It may be that you need to talk things through in a therapy session or you may need to get some behaviour therapy.
8. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
If your angry outbursts are really having a negative effect on your and your family’s life, the health professional you advise you of Cognitive Behaviour therapy. This is a psychotherapeutic treatment aimed at identifying and modifying faulty and negative thinking styles and correcting the behaviours associated with them. It helps people examine the way they think and respond to situations and then learn more helpful ways of responding.