Everyone has a short fuse and can experience anger. Unless you’re a militant shaolin monk, meditating 24/7 in a sacred temple on top of a mountain, you’ve probably experienced the emotion of anger.

That rush of uncontrollable emotion, waiting to burst out at a moments notice. Only later regretting after you have calmed back down.

It may feel as though this cannot be tamed but using some key methods, we can reduce these sudden agressive outbursts!

1. Will getting angry solve your problem?

To put it simply, no… No it won’t.

Anger can be used in a positive way when focusing towards a goal that you want to achieve. Whether thats physcially by going to the gym and lifting weights or using it in a way to motivate yourself to work harder on your personal projects. But the majoirty of time, anger is wasted energy.

Think to yourself the next time you feel angry towards someone or in a certain situation, will this help the problem?

Taking a step back and assessing it, you will begin to quickly notice that reacting in this way will only escalate the issue. Our goal here being, is to not go off the rail.

Instead we want to de-escalate and solve the situation as calmly as possible.

If thinking before is out of the question, then perhaps imagine yourself after the hot rush of anger has cooled down.

During the raging moments of shouting, we might say something that we will later regret. Something that was completely unnecessary and hurtful towards somebody else or even ourselves.

To remove this feeling of shame and guilt, take a step back and realise that anger is not the solution.

2. Practise relaxation methods

Count back from 10. We’ve all heard it before. But how many of us have had the chance to put this into practise.

During the heat of the moment, this simple tip may slip from our minds or perhaps we need to think quickly on the spot and don’t have the time to take 10.

There are other ways in which we can relax our minds.

Call them preventatives. Realising that anger is just an emotion and emotions don’t last forever. It will pass and you will experience another feeling soon after.

This goes with feelings of happiness, excitement, jealousy and hatred.
Being aware of your emotions and not letting them control you is a key step to reducing your anger.

This can be done by practising meditation for as little as 10 minutes a day, even less if this is too much! Thoughts and feelings will arrise, it would be weird if they didn’t. Its our job to realise what they are and not get attatched to them.

Then the next time you are in a situation where anger shows its face you will be less inclined to act upon that emotion.

3. Exercise the anger out of you

For the ones that simply cannot sit still, this might be for you.

Holding onto emotions generally isn’t a good idea. Its far better to forgive and forget.

Exercsing is the anomaly when talking about anger and how to deal with it.

Famous athletes have come out and expressed how they channel their anger and use it to their advantage. Using surge of adrenaline to focus more or gain the feeling to of being more determined to succeed.

This is if you are able to bottle up your anger. Use it in the gym, the next time you feel like quitting, dig deep and search for that feeling, I’m sure you’ll find an extra rep or two.

4. See it from their perspective.

We’ve all had bad days. If not, what are your secrets?

For some it is easier than others to handle their emotions. But sometimes someone is able to push your buttons and push you close to the edge of exploding.

Being in their shoes may help resolve the issue at hand.

Try seeing the situation from their side. Understand what emotions they are feeling. Perhaps they are having a bad day and refelcting their emotions it onto you.

Practising empathy and compassion for others can easily put out the flames before they begin to spread.

The saying, treat others how you want to be treated may seem irrelevant during a heated argument. But it takes the bigger person to hear from both sides during an aurgument, rather than sticking to what you want to be true.

Conclusion.
Anger comes in a variety of different shapes and forms. We can be angry towards ourselves, others or different situations.

Realising that anger doesn’t help the situation and in fact worsens it can help bite your tongue before saying something you might regret.

Instead we can look to focus on our own minds, understanding that this emotion will pass and that it can’t control us.

We can also use this for our own good, by digging deep and hitting that extra rep at the gym or use it as self motivation to work harder at your work or for studying.

Its a shared emotion, inevitble to occur during your day to day life. But how we deal with it, without hurting others or ourselves is the greatest lesson to learn.