Color Your Life Happy

At some point, personal or world events cause us to get angry.

A research study on anger conducted with a group of UCLA students showed that increasing anger increases our blood pressure. In spite of this, the researchers concluded that

People who respond to stressful situations with short-term anger or indignation have a sense of control and optimism that lacks in those who respond with fear.

 The study failed to give tips on how to handle this short-termed anger. Here are some that have worked for me:

1. Agree to be angry for a limited time.
   

   My office mate and I shared close quarters so we agreed many years ago that only one of us could be pissed at a time. Whoever stomped into the office upset first got to vent. The other had to hold off until the next day (if we even remembered it for a whole day.)  It worked for our entire career together.

2. Write a letter to the offending party.
   

   My favorite is to send a letter to the editor, the college president or whoever needs to hear my take on the subject.  

3. Express your upset as calmly as possible to the upsetting party.

I returned from maternity leave to my university teaching position one semester. I soon learned that from my substitute that one of my colleagues had been snooping around my classroom and harassing my substitute to find out what grades and assignments the students we shared were receiving in my class. 

The snooping teacher  was convinced that if some of the same students who were passing my class and failing hers, I must be too laxed, incompetent or both.

Her behavior was particularly upsetting since I’m known for being accessible and very open to my colleagues and students. 

Besides I had been on the faculty for two years before this event.  If this had just come up while I was on leave, she could have called me. Why hadn’t she approached me directly to discuss our classes?

Gr-r-r!

I could not relax until I had a conversation with this offending teacher. It started off very calmly, but I’m afraid it did escalate to a higher volume than I had planned since her excuses were more pathetic than her behavior.

When it was over I felt good because it was out in the open and I didn’t need to waste any brain cells nursing the hurt or regretting that I didn’t deal with it.

   4.  Pick your battles. When I notice someone trying to rush to beat me to the grocery line or cut me off in traffic, I let them go first. (OK OK, most of the time.) I long ago discovered that decathalons aren’t held in grocery stores or on the freeway.

   5.  Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you can, find humor in the situation, then laugh at yourself and get over it.

Once in an effort to diffuse an argument my among our children, my normally calm husband shouted in exasperation “Control your temper!”The irony of the situation was so funny that we all broke out in laughter. We still laugh at it many decades later.

For all our efforts at maintaining happiness, anger will happen. It is part of human responses and like fear has its place in our repertoire of feelings. Rather than be caught off guard or react in destructive or nonproductive ways, discover what responses to anger work best for you.

Making exercise, relaxation techniques and quieting activities part of your routine goes a long way in helping you handle anger in a healthy way.

You definitely don’t want to suppress anger or leave it unexpressed. Either of these can cause long-lasting physical and psychological damage. A person who never allows themselves to feel or express anger is a ticking bomb bound to blow up over something unrelated to the original anger-producing event.

If you realize that you get angry frequently over many things, or feel that the world is against you, it’s time to seek professional anger management help. You’ll do yourself good, and your loved ones and friends will thank you.

What about you? How do you handle anger? Is anger management a problem for you? What are you doing about it?