How to Deal With Anger for Better Mental Health
By Genevieve Cunningham
Feeling angry is a normal response to certain situations in life. Everyone has experienced this emotion and will experience it again. Most people learn how to deal with anger in a healthy way. But for some people, it seems as though anger just gets the best of them. No matter what they do, the anger continues to rise until it makes them feel physically ill. If this is you, there’s a good chance that anger is causing harm to your mental health. In order to boost and protect your mental wellness, take a look at these tips for dealing with anger on a regular basis.
Go Ahead and Vent
One of the worst things that you can do when it comes to anger is hold it in. Don’t do that to yourself. Go ahead and vent it out. In most cases, this will allow you to get the initial anger out and dissipate the rest. But make sure you do it in the right way. If you’re mad at work, don’t go vent about your boss to a coworker. Write it down, call your mom, or talk to someone (a therapist) who is completely removed from the situation. Allowing yourself to get it out of your system is sometimes all it takes to feel better.
Remove Yourself
Sometimes the best thing to do is remove yourself completely from the situation. Angry at work? Leave the premises at lunch. Angry at home? Go outside for a bit. Get out of the heat, so to speak. You don’t have to be gone for long, either. You just need a few minutes to blow off steam and gain a new perspective before throwing yourself back into the fire again.
Get Some Quick, Powerful Movement
Your body doesn’t like to handle multiple stresses at the same time. If you’re feeling mentally wasted or intensely angry, go get some exercise. This allows your brain to switch gears. You can focus on and deal with the physical stress and leave the mental stress behind. This is what’s known as burning off the anger. Go for a run, lift weights, play a contact sport. Get that anger out in a physical sense, and you’ll feel so much better.
Anger is normal, so you don’t have to be afraid of it. But if it’s taking over your life, use these tips to get it under control. Manage your anger, boost your self-control, and you’ll probably find your mental health take a turn for the better before you know it.
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