Anger Management Relaxation Techniques

Anger management relaxation techniques can help prevent anger from ruining your relationships, career, or education.

Regain control of your anger!

Anger is a normal, healthy emotional reaction to unpleasant or irritating circumstances, people, places, or things. When anger is excessive or destructive, however, it becomes unhealthy and can cause problems at home, work, and school.

The goal of anger management relaxation techniques is to calm you both emotionally and physically, enabling you to step back from the situation and see it from a new, clearer perspective. You cannot always eliminate or avoid the people and things that anger you, but you can minimize the negative effects they have on you by learning to control your emotional and physical responses.

Anything that redirects your attention from a trigger and offers you an opportunity to calm down is useful as an anger relaxation technique.

Controlled breathing helps reverse the physical arousal associated with anger. It can slow heart rate, reduce muscle tension, and give you the opportunity to get your anger under control. This anger management technique requires less than 15 minutes to relax your body and calm your mind.

Cognitive restructuring involves changing the way you think and respond to triggering events. Instead of viewing events and reacting to triggers in an exaggerated, dramatic, all-or-nothing way, cognitive restructuring can help you see events from a calm, logical perspective. Avoid using words like "always" and "never" when thinking or talking about yourself or others, and remember that anger will not solve any problems you have. In fact, it will likely make those problems worse. If you break a glass, for example, becoming angry will not replace it, and a broken glass really is not the end of the world.

Progressive muscle relaxation works to relieve physical anger and muscle tension. To use progressive muscle relaxation, you must tense a group of muscles in your body and hold them as tightly contracted as possible for several seconds. You then allow the muscles to relax naturally, focusing on the sensation this relaxation produces. Once they are naturally relaxed, you then consciously relax them even more.

Calm, open communication is a very effective anger management technique. Learning and utilizing good communication skills can prevent angry outbursts caused by misunderstandings and can quickly resolve them before they escalate into anger or violence. Ask for clarification before jumping to conclusions, and share your frustrations, concerns, and negative feelings before they build up.

While anger is a very serious emotion, it is often accompanied by extreme, or even ridiculous, thoughts and ideas. By examining those ideas, and making light of them, you can help diffuse your anger and calm down. While the underlying trigger of your anger is not unimportant or funny, the ability to laugh at your exaggerated reaction to that trigger can help you deal with it constructively.

Time outs are not just for children; giving yourself 15 minutes to calm down and gain control of your emotions is an excellent way to prevent doing or saying something you will regret later. You can also schedule time outs for stressful periods of your day. Take a few minutes to clear your head, think positive thoughts, and prepare yourself for the rest of the day.

In addition to calming your body and mind, anger management relaxation techniques help by refocusing your attention on something positive. They also offer an opportunity to think about the reasons for your anger and to develop a solution to fix any challenges you are facing.

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