How Does Anger Management Combat Aggression?

If you get angry so easily that it’s causing trouble on the job, in your relationships, or is affecting your health, you may wonder if it’s time for anger management. You want to do something to change the way you express yourself, because you don’t want to live with the constant stress and with the fallout from your aggressive or abusive behaviors. But you wonder if anger management can really help. 

Anger management doesn’t try to eradicate your anger or force you to pretend to feel something that you don’t. Instead, anger management teaches you recognize and manage your anger so that you can express it appropriately without negatively affecting anyone’s health or safety — including yours.

At The Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, our expert counselors help you recognize anger as a normal human emotion and find ways to manage it. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) anger management helps you:

Identify and manage contributors to your anger

You may notice that you tend to get angry more easily when you haven’t had enough sleep or if you’re hungry. Your counselors may work with you to find effective ways to increase your sleep hygiene and keep your blood-sugar levels stable. If you tend to get angry when you’re under stress, you’ll learn techniques to help you deal with those types of situations better.

Communicate more effectively

Anger often arises when you feel disempowered, frustrated, or thwarted. Anger management helps you identify situations that might trigger these feelings and learn ways to let people know how you’re feeling before your emotions flare. The point is not to suppress anger but to learn how to be assertive about your needs without becoming aggressive.

Calm yourself down

By learning how you respond to stressful situations, you’ll start to notice the physical changes that let you know that your anger is building. For instance, if your breathing increases or if you hold your breath before an angry outburst, you’ll learn to recognize those cues and realize that it’s time to take a break.

You may learn a variety of techniques, such as deep breathing, mindfulness, and meditation to calm yourself and prevent yourself from acting impulsively. Even taking a break from work or from an upsetting discussion gives you the time you need to manage your emotions so they don’t get away from you.

Use your energy more productively

Anger takes tremendous emotional energy. Anger management teaches you to channel that energy into looking for and creating solutions to the problems that upset you. Instead of feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, you’re empowered to change situations constructively.

Avoid addictive behaviors

When you have trouble with anger, you may be tempted to turn to substances such as alcohol, recreational drugs, and food to improve your mood. By learning ways to handle your emotions on your own, you avoid creating more problems with addictions.

To find out more about anger management, contact our team today, or send us a message with our online form.