Does anyone have good tips for managing anger.

[ShawnP]

sounds like you need more martial arts training, i am not familiar with this myself but from what i have seen, this might be good for you.

 

[Ironbear24]

sounds like you need more martial arts training, i am not familiar with this myself but from what i have seen, this might be good for you.

Whao this guy is hardcore. His stomps shook the room, you can tell by the camera shaking, and his punches are incredible, you can hear the wind coming from them.
I don't understand what he means by kata is to defeat yourself though.

 

[ShawnP]

what i gathered from it is that when you train, your training to teach yourself to control aspects of your life whether it be your attitude (anger) towards others or your health, the self defense is an added bonus. from watching the Katas he is performing it looks as though they are basically calisthenics. i would gather training in any martial arts would teach you these things because most advertise this to get you to enroll. people tend to forget what the martial arts are about and i feel it is because the MAs have been so commercialized now a days to run as a business rather than conditioning for health and wellness of everyday life, people see MMA on T.V. and they all want to be "A Human Killing Machine!".
what is said in the beginning of this video says it all, you train to condition your body and heart and your attitude will follow suit.
i did notice the camera jumping as well, but that could very well be the flooring itself bouncing, not to take anything away from the 2 men in the video, what really amazed me was the grounding of their every step not just the stances, watch their feet, it looks as though they are actually gripping the floor with their toes, very much like an Aikido instructor i know. i hope this helps, good luck on your journey for knowledge.

 

[jks9199]

As someone who's fairly been accused of having a bad temper or not handling their temper as well as might be preferred, I have to second the advice to get some professional help. I think there's more going on than simply a bad temper here. But I'm also just a stranger on the web and I don't know you, which is why you probably would benefit from an actual professional's help. Something that seems extreme as you write it here may actually be nothing.

With that said, the gym behavior described is rude but not on your part. I'm assuming you were actually staring at the woman of course. You don't strip weights from someone else's bar, no matter how big a hurry you're in. That is, unless you're an a******. Where I see that you were off in dealing with it especially with the couple, is that you kept the contact going afterwards all the way up to the front desk. The guy yelled at you for misunderstanding, all you had to do was move on. When you stretch it and make more out of it than it was it made everyone uncomfortable. And really the same sort of thing in the store, you exasperated that situation a bit with your comment and response. Sure she was being a little annoying but you didn't have to feed into that, did you? I know one thing I catching myself is an occasional tendency to start to push my bad day into being someone else's problem. Just because I'm having a bad day, I'm not justified in making someone else's day worse.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[JowGaWolf]

The causes are usually stupid people and college. I've had history with this problem before and used to see a psychiatrist and psychologist about it because it sometimes leads to violent outbursts such as breaking things and hitting stuff. Many of the problems stem from childhood bullying from adults that were around in my life.

Normally a situation starts with me just minding my own business not bothering anybody, then this woman walks in front of me and starts doing all these yoga poses while I'm doing military presses. Her husband then comes over and shouts at me from practically across the room swearing at me to not look at his wife. I stand up and get closer to him and tell him politely. I didn't look at her, he told me to go @#$% myself and then told his wife "let's go we are leaving."

So I then follow them to the front desk and reiterate "Dude I'm being real with you here, I didn't look at her, I don't come here to pick up on women." Then he again began swearing at me and then his wife asked me to just let it go. So I told her ok, then left.

Since then these two people have been acting really strange toward me, if I enter a room at the gym that they are in, they get up and leave and go somewhere else, they at times give me dirty looks and I simply ignore them.

Another thing happened where I was bench pressing and this guy came by and took the weights off as I was lifting the weight, because in his defense "he is in a rush and needs to get home quickly." Outside of the gym many people are just rude in general and I don't get why people have to be this way, I literally do nothing to them to warrant this behavior.

I was at the store and I was walking down the aisle looking for peanut butter, all I wanted was some peanut butter and they didn't have any. So this made me annoyed but nothing beyond that, then this woman behind me was like "Oh my god can you walk any slower!!" So I turned around said to her "well of course I can! Would you like me to show you?" She then called me a fag and went around me.

After days like this I get really moody and just need to go home and vent it out, but sometimes I can't get to that point safely, like the other day I came home and my key broke in the lock in the door. This lead to another outburst I just could not control.

I am much better at controlling this than i was in my early twenties, but lately it has been more difficult. It might be added stress from really lame college classes like statistics, and macroeconomics, nobody likes statistics.

This sounds horrible. I would have just called it a day, sit down with a beer or two, turn on the Playstation or just watch a movie and be done with it. lol. Sometimes there are days where the entire day just sucks

 

[JowGaWolf]

Many of the problems stem from childhood bullying from adults that were around in my life.

This is where most of my anger came from. As a child I had to deal with 8 years of being harassed by other kids just because I didn't fit in and because I didn't go with the flow. I was content to do what I enjoyed instead of following the crowd and it made me a target. The bullying wasn't so bad because I could stop it, but then the cycle started over with every grade with someone new. The harassment was like someone poking a big dog every time. I actually had to get help to deal with it as a kid in the 8th and 9th grade because by that point it was just eating me inside. I still remember that my art teacher was telling me that I sucked at art and that I couldn't draw, and had no talent for it. She said this in a mean way in front of the class which crushed me because drawing was something that I really enjoyed doing. But I was so embarrassed that I cried in class (keep in mind this was in the 8th grade) which gave a bully the opportunity to pick on me when I was at my lowest. After the class bell rang, I chased him and actually tried to push him through the glass of the second story building. The only thing that saved him is that my book bag was heavy and prevented me from being able to push him hard enough to go through the glass. He stopped messing with me after that day and I resented the teacher forever. Still kinda do, but only from the perspective of not having respect for someone who tears down a child like she did and to do it in front of the class.

From that point on it I just started absorbing any anger that I got in my life and never letting it go (talked to anyone about it) and it lasted with me all the way to college. I never felt the urge to tear up my own stuff, but by that time I understood that I had a problem and that the best thing for me to do was not be around people who would take me to that dark place. During the same time in college I learned how to ignore the small stuff like that saying "don't sweat the small stuff." I also learned how to turn my irritations into comedy and make jokes about it. For example, an old lady laid on the horn when we were in traffic and I visualized myself with one of those "can horns" walking to her car window and just giving her a taste of her own medicine. By the time that played through my mind, my irritation had turned into amusement.

The only thing I would recommend is that, if someone is irritated with you and walks away, then let them walk away. There's no need to address what they accuse you of, if they are walking away. Let them walk away because at that point they are no longer engaged in conversation with you. In college women, used to think I was weak because I didn't get into the verbal sparring with people. The sooner they got out of my face the better off I'll be, and me saying something to them will not only keep them in my face but will make them stay longer than I want. I learned how to just blow a lot of stuff off. Things will be fine as long as they don't hit me or get into my personal space "safety zone." If a person gets mad at you and walks away without you saying anything then that is always good thing

The biggest thing that helps me the most is when I accepted that there are things that I have no control over and it's those things that I shouldn't get mad or angry about. I may get slightly irritated but then I remind myself that I have no control over the stupid stuff that people do, so long as it's not done in my personal space (which is arms length and legs length distance).

Even through all of this I understood that my anger was cumulative anger which is probably one of the worst things anyone can do to themselves. Do I get angry or mad now? Yes, but it takes so much to get me angry now, that if I beat the mess out of someone, the first thing that people who know me will probably say is that the person must have really done something bad to make me do something like that. I think I corrected my anger issues by the time I was 25. Every since then I've been a fairly laid back person, but I keep a "mental note" to not let life's little problems snowball into a big problem.

On a meaner note, I have also discovered that I can piss people off by acting the opposite of what they expect. For example, the lady who said you were too slow, I would have just responded in a nice voice, "oh I'm sorry." as if her statement did nothing to me. Then I would watch her face to see her become more irritated than before, because now if she says something else bad, it'll have to be after I was nice to her. Stuff like that eats people up and I enjoy seeing it eat them up and all I had to do was be nice. Most people are more likely to be more of an a-hole when you confront them with smart remarks because your remarks make them feel justified. But when you respond with kindness you take away what they want the most, a verbal match of insults.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Whao this guy is hardcore. His stomps shook the room, you can tell by the camera shaking, and his punches are incredible, you can hear the wind coming from them.
I don't understand what he means by kata is to defeat yourself though.

We have a similar saying in our system "we have to tame our own tiger." In your case emotion of anger is your "tiger" so by focusing on Kata you can learn how to control your focus, be it emotions or something else. You learn how to remove distractions be it your own thoughts or a person who is irritating you. You learn to control what makes your state of being, both the positive and the negative parts of you. If you did kata for 5 hours and learned to only focus on kata, then you would not only learn control but you will have a different perception of who you are and what really makes you the person you are.

Try to do kata for an hour and focus only on the kata. What you soon realize is that you'll have an inner battle between focusing on kata and focusing on other stuff that's not kata. In a sense it's a battle against yourself. This is similar to a lot of what goes on in our life. When you get angry focus on letting go and not being angry and you'll soon realize that you are in a battle with yourself between being angry and not being angry. The better you get at controlling yourself the happier it will be. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. It takes time

 

[ShawnP]

Shawn,
As someone who's fairly been accused of having a bad temper or not handling their temper as well as might be preferred, I have to second the advice to get some professional help. I think there's more going on than simply a bad temper here. But I'm also just a stranger on the web and I don't know you, which is why you probably would benefit from an actual professional's help. Something that seems extreme as you write it here may actually be nothing.

With that said, the gym behavior described is rude but not on your part. I'm assuming you were actually staring at the woman of course. You don't strip weights from someone else's bar, no matter how big a hurry you're in. That is, unless you're an a******. Where I see that you were off in dealing with it especially with the couple, is that you kept the contact going afterwards all the way up to the front desk. The guy yelled at you for misunderstanding, all you had to do was move on. When you stretch it and make more out of it than it was it made everyone uncomfortable. And really the same sort of thing in the store, you exasperated that situation a bit with your comment and response. Sure she was being a little annoying but you didn't have to feed into that, did you? I know one thing I catching myself is an occasional tendency to start to push my bad day how is driving someone else's how into being someone else's problem. Just because I'm having a bad day, I'm not justified in making someone else's day worse.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

ok im am officially confused......., i may have anger issues but i have not displayed them on these forums or displayed them for quite some time since ive had these medical issues, but none the less i think you have me confused with the OP?
yep just as i suspected, i went back and read the whole thread, and yes you have me confused with the OP IronBear24.

 

[Buka]

The causes are usually stupid people and college. I've had history with this problem before and used to see a psychiatrist and psychologist about it because it sometimes leads to violent outbursts such as breaking things and hitting stuff. Many of the problems stem from childhood bullying from adults that were around in my life.

Normally a situation starts with me just minding my own business not bothering anybody, then this woman walks in front of me and starts doing all these yoga poses while I'm doing military presses. Her husband then comes over and shouts at me from practically across the room swearing at me to not look at his wife. I stand up and get closer to him and tell him politely. I didn't look at her, he told me to go @#$% myself and then told his wife "let's go we are leaving."

So I then follow them to the front desk and reiterate "Dude I'm being real with you here, I didn't look at her, I don't come here to pick up on women." Then he again began swearing at me and then his wife asked me to just let it go. So I told her ok, then left.

Since then these two people have been acting really strange toward me, if I enter a room at the gym that they are in, they get up and leave and go somewhere else, they at times give me dirty looks and I simply ignore them.

Another thing happened where I was bench pressing and this guy came by and took the weights off as I was lifting the weight, because in his defense "he is in a rush and needs to get home quickly." Outside of the gym many people are just rude in general and I don't get why people have to be this way, I literally do nothing to them to warrant this behavior.

I was at the store and I was walking down the aisle looking for peanut butter, all I wanted was some peanut butter and they didn't have any. So this made me annoyed but nothing beyond that, then this woman behind me was like "Oh my god can you walk any slower!!" So I turned around said to her "well of course I can! Would you like me to show you?" She then called me a fag and went around me.

After days like this I get really moody and just need to go home and vent it out, but sometimes I can't get to that point safely, like the other day I came home and my key broke in the lock in the door. This lead to another outburst I just could not control.

I am much better at controlling this than i was in my early twenties, but lately it has been more difficult. It might be added stress from really lame college classes like statistics, and macroeconomics, nobody likes statistics.

Ah, so you have allergies. Allergic to asshats in your presence.
Ah, yes, have suffered it myself.

There's a great quote by Jean de La Bruyere - "Life is a tragedy to those that feel and a comedy to those that think." Hearing that many years ago, studying it and trying it - helped me a lot. Both in my work and my personal life. We can't really control what others do, just our reaction to it. If I let their actions make me feel, I usually have trouble. But I've used a really small, wry smile as a response to make me think about how absurd their action is - instead of actually feeling it as a stimulus. Works pretty good. So far, anyway, a few decades in.

Martial Arts training helps as well. Not sure if talking to a bunch of us crazy people on a forum does any good. Of course, it probably does - probably makes you realize these folks tend to get angry a little bit as well. (who, us? Nah!)

As for the physical parts of the equation - enough, regular sleep is key. I know it's hard with school and training and everything else, but it's the most important thing.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Ah, so you have allergies. Allergic to asshats in your presence.
Ah, yes, have suffered it myself.

There's a great quote by Jean de La Bruyere - "Life is a tragedy to those that feel and a comedy to those that think." Hearing that many years ago, studying it and trying it - helped me a lot. Both in my work and my personal life. We can't really control what others do, just our reaction to it. If I let their actions make me feel, I usually have trouble. But I've used a really small, wry smile as a response to make me think about how absurd their action is - instead of actually feeling it as a stimulus. Works pretty good. So far, anyway, a few decades in.

Martial Arts training helps as well. Not sure if talking to a bunch of us crazy people on a forum does any good. Of course, it probably does - probably makes you realize these folks tend to get angry a little bit as well. (who, us? Nah!)

As for the physical parts of the equation - enough, regular sleep is key. I know it's hard with school and training and everything else, but it's the most important thing.

Thanks, I needed that..... I started off the day rather angry today.....calming down thanks to your post

 

[ShawnP]

Thanks, I needed that..... I started off the day rather angry today.....calming down thanks to your post

thats funny so did i, but as the night/day went on i realized why i was upset and then began shrugging things off, i am officially happier today.

 

[jks9199]

ok im am officially confused......., i may have anger issues but i have not displayed them on these forums or displayed them for quite some time since ive had these medical issues, but none the less i think you have me confused with the OP?
yep just as i suspected, i went back and read the whole thread, and yes you have me confused with the OP IronBear24.

Sorry about that... Reading on my phone, sometimes it's hard to keep things straight.

 

[ShawnP]

Sorry about that... Reading on my phone, sometimes it's hard to keep things straight.

 

[kehcorpz]

Slow deep breaths, doing it fast might also help but preferably slow (possibly both?)

This may help with acute anger/rage. But it doesn't touch on the thought level.
Anger which comes again and again cause you think certain thoughts can be helped by this, I'm afraid.

It is very hard once you're angry to distract yourself. What one can try to do is focusing all attention on
let's say a body part. It should be something which you feel for example if you feel your foot then focus
entirely on it. Often times when you focus on a body part you will actually start to suddenly feel it much
more than before. I tried this stuff a few times successfully but other times it doesn't work and my thoughts
drift off.

 

[Phobius]

Problem is whether these people are making you angry, or you are just angry and they made you aware of that anger by bringing it to the surface.

You have to be happy or neutral if you are to not be angry. Neutral is not your way from what I recall since you are a person that care very much about how you are perceived. This might make you defensive? You are always trying to defend yourself and easy on the trigger if you believe something to be an offense?

Perhaps the key to not being angry, and this sounds stupid, is to find happiness.

I am a berserker myself, easy to lose temper and when I do I become simple minded and violent. Learnt to deal with it after almost strangling some guy to death. My solution I doubt would work for you. Trained karate and was taught and finally made to believe that nothing matters besides myself and eventually that I am not my anger, instead I can look at myself when angry and be figuring out what I did to make myself angry.

It is never someone else making us angry, always ourselves to be blamed. Others may be a**holes but why should that make us angry? It is really silly to first let them insult us and then let them ruin our day. Instead just find the funny or interesting bits of why you got angry and analyze them.

Anyways, useless text because we are all different. Perhaps best way is to just get professional help.

 

[elder999]

The causes are usually stupid people and college. I've had history with this problem before and used to see a psychiatrist and psychologist about it because it sometimes leads to violent outbursts such as breaking things and hitting stuff. Many of the problems stem from childhood bullying from adults that were around in my life..

Go home.

Get a pad and pen.

Plot the murder of the object of your anger. How to do it. Where you'd find them. What you'd have to do to get away with it. Make it......perfect.

Burn the paper up. Your anger will go with it........

......or you could do like I do.

 

[Xue Sheng]

......or you could do like I do.

But where would he get the Plutonium, Pule cheese, Shark cage and a Cherokee blow gun

 

[King Kobra]

I read a good book on anger that really helped (the gf's idea and plus I always knew I had a bit of a problem with anger) I used to react just the same as you. First off you first need to know that your not an angry person, anger is not your state of being (picture yourself with family or friends) but you are just a person EXPERIENCING anger, there's a huge difference cuz anger is normal and everyone gets pissed they just have different ways of dealing with it. This realization helped lots and what's below helped immensely.

What I found the most useful in the book was one part that suggested thinking of your mind and emotions as a body of water and anger as a wave. One might look at the wave and think the whole body of water was violent but if you looked deeper you'd see that the rest of the water was calm just below and that wave and hardly affected it and given some time the wave would subside. The water is just experiencing a wave right now.

I found it useful to recognize the first signs of my anger, increased heart rate, an intense fixation on what angered me, that first shot of adrenaline or the feelings I'd get in my arms like they wanted to move (aka they just wanted to hit something or someone) and I'd honestly picture myself as water with a ripples of anger and I'd remind myself that the rest of me was actually calm and I'd focus on that part of me (the calm water) and would try to behave that way because your mind mimics what your body is doing, If you move calmly or slowly then your mind calms and slows down and would let this "wave" subside. it would also help to visualize the water becoming more calm and as it did, so did I.

If you do the opposite and physically speed up or grip things tighter, replaying things in your mind or whatever you do personally your feeding the ripples. The thing that angered you was one stone cast in the water, the things you do to feed the anger are yet more stones you yourself are casting in. Recognize what stones you cast and dont cast them and you can calm down.

This visualization has helped me so much, I'm a much different person now. After some time (about a year for me) it became automatic to start calming down the moment I'd get pissed. I'd still get angry but it no longer lasted long at all. I'd be angry for something like a tenth of a second and the rest of the time I was simply becoming more calm and would react like a sane person instead of how I reacted before. I hope this post is helpful

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

An old lady liked to count her gold rings every night before going to bed. One night she could only count 19 gold rings instead of 20. 1 gold ring was missing. She hanged herself that night.

Don't think about what you have lose (or don't have). Think about what you still have. If you lose 1 gold ring, think about you still have 19 gold rings.

If you lose your

- arms, think about you can still walk.
- legs, think about you can still see.
- eyes, think about you can still breath.
- ...

100 years from today, nothing should bother you. Why should you let anything to bother you today?

 

[drop bear]

Whao this guy is hardcore. His stomps shook the room, you can tell by the camera shaking, and his punches are incredible, you can hear the wind coming from them.
I don't understand what he means by kata is to defeat yourself though.

"In boxing as is life you are your own biggest opponent"

Watch a rocky movie some time.