Your Anger Management Guide: Best Techniques & Exercises

Anger Management

Maybe you have a no-nonsense approach to life, or perhaps you are just angry.

“Pathological anger can ruin your relationships, career, and health if you don’t take action,” but there are techniques that can help (Dyer, 2020, p. 14).

We know that everyone gets angry, but letting it get out of control is harmful. Anger management treatment helps people lead a full, happy, and healthy life (Karmin, 2017).

This article provides tips, techniques, and strategies taken from anger management therapy. It also introduces exercises and activities to take charge of emotions and keep anger under control.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and work with your anger emotions, but also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students, or employees.

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Conducting Anger Management Therapy: 10+ Tips

We don’t have to accept destructive anger-driven behavior, and, perhaps more importantly, neither should others. There is a wealth of literature and advice available to regain control of our emotions.

Anger is a real problem in society. Studies suggest that “eight percent of the adult population find it hard to control their temper,” and any of us can develop an anger problem (Dyer, 2020, p. 14).

There are, however, several tips that can start or keep us on the path to managing our emotions, before considering signing up for anger management therapy.

We’ve included some of the best below (modified from Dyer, 2020).

Identify if you have an anger problem

While a degree of anger is normal and at times helpful in our lives, we need to ask ourselves if we get consumed by rage. For example, do we lose control when we feel disrespected or see someone else treated poorly?

Key indications of a serious anger problem include the following (Dyer, 2020):

  1. Your anger feels too strong to handle.
  2. You are angry regularly.
  3. You get angry over things that don’t seem to affect other people.
  4. Your anger affects your relationships and work.
  5. Your anger turns to aggression or violence.
  6. You engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms to handle your behavior.

Recognizing there is a problem is the first step toward change (Karmin, 2017).

Learn to cope with your emotions

Finding techniques that help you cope with strong emotions and break the anger cycle is an essential next step in anger management (Dyer, 2020).

Out-of-control anger means that your emotions are dictating your behavior. Dyer (2020) offers several techniques to regain mastery over feelings and avoid acting in a destructive or harmful way.

  1. Distance yourself
    Physically removing yourself from an emotional situation can immediately bring relief. However, if that’s not possible, psychological distance can help. Imagining someone else experiencing the problem or looking in on yourself can help you respond more rationally.
  2. Practice deep breathing
    Breathing slowly and deeply is a powerful method for restoring logical, less emotional thinking and encouraging feelings of relaxation (Nestor, 2020).
  3. Ask for time out
    Before you do or say something regrettable, excuse yourself. Get a few minutes away from the heat of the situation to regain composure and more logical thinking.
  4. Engage in physical activity
    In the heat of anger, your body is on fire with endorphins and stress hormones that prepare you for action. Take a walk, ideally outside, to restore physical (as well as mental) balance.
  5. Change your posture and facial expression
    Surprisingly, altering your body language can be effective at changing how others see you and how you feel. Relaxing your arms and shoulders and unclenching your fists can help (Cuddy, 2018).
  6. Laugh
    If you can see the humor in the situation and it’s appropriate, laughter can create a temporary distraction or change a tense dynamic.
  7. Play calming or happy music
    Listening to bright or relaxing music can be distracting and an effective way to decompress.

Seek medical help

Physical illness and physiological changes can cause emotional shifts. Seek medical help for severe mood swings and unexpected anger (Dyer, 2020; U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2021).

Medical assessments for these types of symptoms may include running tests, asking about, or discussing the possibility of:

While none of these factors are excuses for lashing out at others, they may suggest underlying factors worsening the situation.

Develop the skills to manage anger

The goal of managing your anger is to avoid saying or doing things that you will later regret. Managing your anger involves developing the skills necessary to successfully (Karmin, 2017):

Ask yourself, what is the hardest part of managing your anger when you are:

Use the answers to reflect on what you could do differently, and learn how to show yourself and others more compassion.

7 Anger Management Techniques & Strategies

Anger management techniques

The following approaches can help someone respond differently to people and events that typically cause them to become angry.

Understand the anger management cycle

In Anger Management – How to Take Control of Your Emotions and Find Joy in Life, Judy Dyer (2020) says that once you recognize the factors involved in triggering angry responses, you can learn how to break the anger cycle.

A typical angry response is the result of the following steps (modified from Dyer, 2020):

  1. Something happens to annoy or upset you (triggering event).
  2. Negative or irrational thoughts kick in.
  3. Such thoughts lead to unpleasant emotions.
  4. You start to experience physical symptoms of anger (hot flash, sweating, shaking, clenched fists).
  5. You react (behavior), possibly yelling, crying, arguing, lashing out, or withdrawing.

It doesn’t have to be this way. According to Dyer (2020), you can break the cycle.

Challenge your thoughts

Therapists often begin by focusing on a client’s negative thoughts or cognitive distortions (Dyer, 2020).

Ask your clients to consider whether the following statements hold true for them:

Ask your clients to challenge their negative thinking using the following steps (Dyer, 2020):

  1. Write the thought down.
  2. Reflect on how you feel when you have this thought.
  3. Think about the type of cognitive distortion you might be using.
  4. Identify how fully you accept (believe) this thought on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 10 (completely).
  5. Identify a more helpful thought to reframe the situation.

What advice would you give to a friend?
What supporting evidence do you have?
Is this a helpful thought?
What will you think in a week/month/year?

  1. Re-score how fully you accept this new thought, from 1 (not at all) to 10 (completely).

If the score is less than five, come up with a new thought.

  1. How does it feel to hold on to this new thought?

Perhaps you feel less angry, lighter, and calmer.

When you next get angry, notice your thoughts. Are they cognitive distortions or negative thoughts? Could you replace them?

Anger in relationships

“Angry people often have angry relationships” says Dyer (2020, p. 53).

Over time, both partners can fall into a pattern of habitual anger unless the anger cycle is shut down. Instead, try to share one another’s needs and wants, and address issues as they arise.

Dyer (2020) suggests the following strategies: