You feel yourself getting angry or you’ve just blown up at someone, now what do you do? What needs to happen is for you to calm down.

Anger Management Techniques

Remember people respond to your emotions and not to your words, so it’s best to communicate from a calm place. So basically calming down is calming your mind down. Anger management techniques help with this. If you’ve just blown up or get very angry, research show that it takes 20 to 30 minutes for your brain to return to normal. You want your brain to be calmer so you can find win-win solutions. And also to be able to do any repair work in the relationship from your anger.

Here are some Anger management techniques for calming down:

1.  Breathing, taking slow deep breaths. The benefits of this is that it gives your mind something else to focus on, and  your mind will match your breath and it relaxes your body.

2.  Positive self talk, these are things that we say to ourselves that are helpful and more positive.  Things like:

“There is a solution to this.”

“We can work this out.”

“I can manage my anger. It’s okay for me to be angry.”

Another good one is, “ I’m a work in progress.” or  “Progress not perfection.”

Talk to yourself in a calm, nurturing voice. Be supportive, not critical.

I like to combine the first two together, taking slow deep breaths and using positive self talk.

3.  Take a break or time out, distract yourself, take a bath, listen to music, go to some quiet space, read, or exercise. Go for a walk, or run or shoot some hoops. Sometimes doing something physical can help. Remember to say when you want to follow up this conversation (don’t wait too long).

4.  Count to 10 or count from 10 backwards.

5.  Relax the body, progressive relaxation techniques are great or yoga stretches and poses also are very helpful in relaxing the body.

6.  Think of a peaceful scene, a place that you like that’s calming and peaceful, like the beach or the mountains or desert, or some place you create in your own mind that is this the perfect place for peace for you.

I hope you try these techniques and you find them helpful for calming down.
Echoes of the Heart CD by Robert and Terri Lynn TallTree
My next post on anger management techniques will be on what to do after you’ve calmed down or now what?

To Your Highest Good,

Laura Meehan, MA

Integrative Counselor and Coach

Founder and Liberator of Allowyourlightoshine.com

Ambassador of Cure for Boredom on Howtoliveonpurpose.com

P.S.Also to help you get calm or to stay calm,  get this CD, Echos of the Heart …a Sacred Journey, created by my good friends Robert and Terri TallTree.

This is a calming CD of Native American Flute music.

This music brings  you the experience of balance and harmony and  helps you reconnect with your own spiritual nature.