LIFE HACKS: ANGER MANAGEMENT

IF YOU LOSE YOUR COOL OFTEN, TRY FIGHTING IT WITH CURIOSITY

ANGER BOUTS in people vary vastly. One person can be relatively unfazed, while another person could completely lose their cool. This has a lot to do with the complexities in each of us such as our personal history, temperament, circumstances and more.

If you look back over the past few days and regret having let anger get the better of you, there’s no need to enrol for an anger management course. Try a mindfulness trick or two instead, like Chris Boutte, a frequent writer on mindfulness, does.

Outright meditation is helpful to those who find it easy to embrace it, but isn’t for everyone. Many become very quickly bored with the practice and despite having had an interesting experience for a couple of days, give up on it. Boutte suggests using informal mindfulness – just coming into the moment, standing outside of oneself and noticing those first few signs of anger bubbling up.

“What I began to realise was that I was only acknowledging my anger when I was ready to explode, and it was often something that had been building up for a while. Since I wasn’t recognising the early triggers of my anger, I wasn’t able to deal with it before reacting in a way that I would regret,” he writes on the TinyBuddha portal, a space for sharing life advice.

There are distinct early warning signs of oncoming anger. Stepping outside of one’s thoughts to examine the pattern, the source, and the reason is a valuable tool to manage it. Instead of reacting, one is able to examine one’s own anger with a certain curiosity and compassion. “Now, when I feel that initial anger within my body or mind, I get really curious. I take a calm breath and simply think, ‘That’s interesting. Why am I feeling this way towards this person or situation?’”

Managing anger with a moment of mindfulness can de-clutter the mind of unhealthy thoughts and perceptions. Boutte suggests starting this practice with someone who doesn’t trigger off very strong emotions, perhaps someone at work rather than a family member. Done often enough and with persistence, the method will spill over to other people.

MANAGING ANGER WITH A MOMENT OF MINDFULNESS CAN DE- CLUTTER THE MIND