Anger Management with Emotional Intelligence

Anger Management With EQ

Emotional Intelligence is the powerful tool to focus your energy in positive direction. Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Complete emotional thinking can lead you to bad decisions, while total analytical thinking can lead you to cognitive paralysis. It’s when we mix the two that we make the best decisions. Emotional intelligence, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improve our life skill. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Skills

“Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.” — Aristotle

Emotional Intelligence is the way to express our emotional energy with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way. Meditation and yoga exercises can improve your EQ.

Emotional intelligence involves four major skills:

The ability to perceive emotions
The ability to reason with emotions
The ability to understand emotions
The ability to manage emotions.

Anger Management:

office_meditationAnger management is a procedure of acquiring the skills to recognize signs that you are becoming angry, and taking action to deal with the situation in a positive way. In no way does anger management mean holding the anger in or trying to keep from feeling anger. Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (such as a coworker or supervisor) or event (a traffic jam, a canceled flight), or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings.

Understand the nature of  your anger:

Anger has different forms, which emerge in our mind and get communicated to others through our behavior:

1. Irritation
You create this when day-to-day events don’t happen fast enough e.g. your flight gets delayed, you are made to wait in a queue, etc.
2. Frustration
You create this when events don’t occur as per your desires and expectations.
3. Grudge
You create this when you believe that you have been wronged by someone in the past.
4. Resentment
You create this towards those that you think have insulted or offended you or when you are jealous of someone.
5. Hatred
You create this following your deep disapproval of another’s actions.
6. Rage
You create this following the build up of anger normally in response to others’ actions, which you label as obstructive or interfering, e.g. road rage.

Anger management techniques:

1. Think before you speak

In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to say something you’ll later regret. Take a few moments to collect your thoughts before saying anything — and allow others involved in the situation to do the same.

2. Deep breathing

When you start feeling angry, try deep breathing, positive self-talk, or stopping your angry thoughts. Breathe deeply from your diaphragm. Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as “relax” or “take it easy.” Repeat it to yourself while breathing deeply until the anger subsides.

3. Bring your awareness to present moment

Sit down quietly and observe your senses. What can you see, hear, smell, feel and taste? Now, one by one, withdraw (remove) your consciousness (attention) from these senses. Imagine that you are in a world with no color, no sound, no fragrances, no sensations and no tastes. You are just a star like point of consciousness – living energy, situated at the center of the forehead radiating rays of peace, love and joy to the world generic tramadol side effects around you. Do this exercise slowly: firstly, with conscious awareness and then detaching yourself and finally bringing your awareness back to your senses. Note down your experience.

4. Be rational

Try replacing the anger thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself, “oh, it’s awful, it’s terrible, everything’s ruined,” tell yourself, “it’s frustrating, and it’s understandable that I’m upset about it, but it’s not the end of the world and getting angry is not going to fix it anyhow.” Remind yourself that getting angry is not going to fix anything, that it won’t make you feel better and may actually make you feel worse.

5. See your self as the source of peace and love

Access your inner peace which is your inner power. The more the power of your peace is present in your heart the more you are able to give love and support to your self and to others. There cannot be love unless there is peace. If your own heart is not at peace you cannot give love. There are no greater powers in this life than your inherent peace and your unlimited love.

6. Get some exercise

Physical exercise can help reduce stress that can cause you to become angry. If you feel your anger escalating, go for a brisk walk or run, or spend some time doing other enjoyable physical activities.

7. Use Humor

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it easy. The simple act of laughing can go along way to reduce anger, especially over the longer term. Angry people tend to feel that they are morally right, that any blocking or changing of their plans is an unbearable indignity and that they should NOT have to suffer this way. Maybe other people do, but not them! Humor quotes, funny pictures can help you to reduce your anger.

8. Increase your self-awareness

Understanding emotional self-awareness, one of the five principals of emotional intelligence is essential in mastering anger control and fear control skills. understanding your own feelings, what causes them, and how they impact your thoughts and actions is emotional self-awareness. Researchers observed that that self-awareness skills and Anger Management had a positive effect on Teenagers Aggression.

9. Improve your listening skills

Practice good listening skills. Listening can help improve communication and can build trusting feelings between people. This trust can help you deal with potentially hostile emotions. A useful communication exercise is to say to someone, “Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying” and then restate back to them what you perceive as their main message or point of view. Often, this approach helps to clarify misunderstandings that can lead to frustrations, and help identify issues on which you may ultimately “agree to disagree” without turning into a fight.

10. Sound Sleep

Sleep is an important part of life and good quality sleep can help combat many physical, mental and emotional problems, including anger.

When we sleep, the body and mind rest and rebuild damaged cells and neural pathways. We feel better after a good night’s sleep. The optimum level of good quality sleep is about 7 hours a night, however everybody is different and you may need more or less than this.

Summary:

Anger management with emotional intelligence is a powerful tool for happy living. You need to understand and manage the nature of your anger. We discussed here ten top anger management tips with emotional intelligence. This article is meant to help you understand and control anger.

References:

1. The Effect of Training Self-Awareness and Anger Management on Aggression Level in Iranian Middle School Students

2. Meditation: Insights and inspirations By Amit Ray