Anger Management: Another View

These are days when people get angry fast. It’s as if anywhere you go, any time of day, any day of the month, there’s reason to be angry.

You wake up early in the morning, open the TV to the day’s news and you get stressed by all the bad news—unbelievable government corruption, economic crisis, bombings worldwide, unabated and unsolved killings, droughts, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, legislators wasting their time, and the citizens’, destroying each other—can it get any worse?

You drive to work and get mad at drivers who drive like crazy, causing you driving stress. You start to work and get stressed by inefficient staff, abrasive customers or too demanding boss.

At the end of the day, you pass by the supermarket to buy some food and groceries and watch with bated breath as the numbers in the cashiering machine build up to levels you’ve never seen before, with the same or even less quantity of goods. The only consolation is that you don’t have to pay them with cash because of the proliferation of credit cards. But wait till you receive the monthly bill and your blood pressure shoots up.

How do you deal with this? Do you allow yourself to get angry at each and every problem, big or small, that comes your way? Don’t.

Many literatures discuss about anger management in myriad complex ways. They analyze what anger is in depth and end up with analysis paralysis. Here are simple ways that you can avoid getting angry when an unpleasant event occurs.

1. Avoid an instant reaction, usually in the form of an angry outburst. Drink water slowly, savoring the drinking process. Water soothes the nerves and if you can spend at least 30 seconds drinking, your anger would be largely gone by the time you finish drinking.

2. If you are not anywhere near a water source, count to 10 before reacting. The counting should be deliberate and not hurried. If you are still raging mad by then, extend it to 20. The important thing is to give yourself time to cool down and think more rationally.

3. Walk away from that event that is causing you to get angry. There’s absolutely no sense in getting into a fight. You could get hurt or you could hurt somebody. Either way, it’s not worth the effort and the physical and emotional damages.

I’ve quoted it before, I’ll quote it again: “The difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude.” If you allow an event to make you angry, it’s your decision. If you don’t allow it to make you angry, it’s your decision, too. The choice is ultimately yours.