Are you hot-headed?

Here are some ways to keep you from reaching a boiling point

Anger is one emotion that comes most easily to us. So, it’s perfectly normal when it is within control. Problems arise when it becomes uncontrollable and destructive, affecting your relationships at work and home.

What is anger?

It is felt at an emotional plane in life, either as a mild irritation to an intense fury or rage, and is accompanied by discomforting physical sensations. Anger could be caused by external events (delay in public transports, waiting in long queues, corruption, etc) or internal events (constantly perceiving insults or brooding over problems, ‘my way or the highway attitude in life). Thus, anger becomes a natural and adaptive response to a threat where a certain amount of anger becomes necessary to our survival, but when it takes over our lives on a day to day basis it threatens our very existence! Some people choose to express their anger aggressively by screaming, shouting, hitting and lashing out, whereas others suppress their anger by directing it inwards. Unexpressed anger can create other problems. Both physical (high blood pressure, migraines, acidity etc) and behavioral symptoms can develop. The healthiest way to express your anger is in an assertive and not aggressive way.

Why are you hot-headed?

• Low tolerance levels of frustration and inconvenience.
• Extremely sensitive to being corrected.
• For some people, it all begins from childhood. They are irritable and touchy from an early age.
• Family background and upbringing. (Some families are not skilled at emotional communication).

Manage your anger

Reduce your sensitivity to the emotional experience of anger. Become aware of your sensitivities that trigger anger. You can’t get rid of things or the people that enrage you, nor can you change them so what do you do? The only viable solution for you is to manage your emotions and channelise your anger constructively. Easier said that done? Here’s how:

Respond, don’t react

In a heated argument, don’t say the first thing that comes to your head. Slow down, ask yourself to relax, breathe deeply, count 1 to 50 if required. Now carefully think about what you want to say, at the same time listen to what the opposite person is saying and take your time before answering. 

Logic overshadows anger

Even though sometimes anger may feel justified it can be proved irrational only by logic. 

Script your anger

Re-script your daily language. It is healthier to say, “I would like to have…”, rather than, “I must have…”People who use words like ‘never’ or ‘always’. This does not give the opposite person time to change the problem, and moreover in your head the experience is that there is no hope. Use of foul language…is a strict no-no, because it will make the opposite person angrier.

Humor your anger. If you are upset with a co-worker and you think he’s a blockhead, every time you are upset with him think of him as a block of wood, incapable of acting appropriately, this takes the fury out of your anger and enables you to take responsibility of the situation. 

Learn to chill out

Problems and responsibilities tend to weigh down on you making you feel trapped and angry. In your schedule for the day, always take out time for ‘yourself’ and reflect on the day and the situations that have triggered anger.

Use deep breathing exercises and ask yourself to relax as your exhale. Breathe deep from the diaphragm and not just from the chest. Exhale your anger out.

Use visualization and relaxing imagery. Whichever scenery in nature resonated within you, must be used by you to relax.