How to Calm Your Own Anger in 60 Seconds or Less.

#Anger #Calm #EmotionalIntelligence #Emotions #Thoughts #Mindfulness

Do you ever get really angry? And when it happens, especially at work, are the consequences good or bad? I'm not talking about the competitive zeal you might get when a competitor beats you out for a lucrative sale and you feel determined to beat them out next time. I'm talking about the rage that can take over when someone treats you unfairly, insults you, or even cuts you off in traffic.

That kind of anger can leave you feeling helpless, useless, self-pitying, and unable to focus on the tasks. Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow quiet that anger when it first arises, so you could think logically about how to respond? There is a way that comes from recognizing the truth about anger. Although it is a feeling, it results directly from what you're thinking and from the meaning, you derive from the words or acts that have ticked you off.

To prove it, psychologist Jeffrey Nevid, Ph.D., proposes a simple experiment: Spend 60 seconds making yourself feel really angry while keeping your mind completely blank. Sure, you can summon that awful thing your spouse said or how your boss never gives you the information you need and feel real red-hot anger in a second or two. But try and feel it while not thinking about anything. If you're like most people, Nevid says, you can't do it, not really.

What that means, he writes, is that our anger is always the result of thoughts. The thing is, those thoughts can be completely wrong. Once when I was around ten years old, I flew into a sorrowful rage because in the middle of an argument, my mother had called me a "sickening child." At least, that's what I heard. I later found out that she'd said, "I'm sick and tired."

Not every burst of anger results from mishearing what someone else said. But it often arises from placing your own interpretation and understanding of someone else's words and behavior rather than trying to figure out what that person is actually feeling and thinking. With that in mind, Nevid also offers a one-minute exercise for managing anger and regaining calm.

1. Allow yourself to feel angry. Trying to tell yourself you aren't angry when you are won't help you get past your anger, it will just make your anger stronger, as happens to every emotion we try to deny or ignore. So don't ignore or deny it. Admit to yourself that you feel angry; if it's appropriate, don't conceal your anger from others either.

2. But don't allow yourself to feel helpless. Ever notice that whenever we get angry, we think of it as something that was done to us? People and events "make" us angry, suggesting that we are innocent victims of that emotion. This is exemplified by the comic book character Bruce Banner, who pleads, "Don't make me angry," because if you do, against his will, he will transform into the Incredible Hulk.

I don't mean to suggest that your anger is completely voluntary. Something does usually set it off. But, as Nevid's 60-second experiment shows, anger cannot exist, separated from your thoughts about whatever it is that made you feel that way. So the story you tell yourself about whatever made you angry can inflame that anger more or allow it to slowly dissipate. It really is up to you.

3. Apply emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence or EQ, is generally defined as the ability to understand and manage our own emotions and to understand and influence the emotions of others. You need EQ to manage your own anger, both to understand and acknowledge your own feelings and also to understand and empathize with others. That person who just cut you off in traffic may be hurrying to the hospital because a loved one is ill. The colleague who just insulted you may not have intended the comment as an insult. Or, he or she may be having a very bad day and reacting badly as a result. Or maybe you're taking something that wasn't directed at you personally.

As Nevid writes, "When you approach the other person with empathy (accurate understanding of the other person's feelings), you quell the tendency to respond to inappropriate anger with anger of your own." If you can do that, you can stop a conflict from escalating out of control. You may get to understand the people who make you angry better. They might even understand you better too.

By Minda Zetlin --inc.com

Five Simple Ways to Start Communicating More Mindfully

#Communication #HealthyRelationship #Mindfulness If you've ever practiced mindfulness, you're probably already aware of the many benefits it offers for the willing and dedicated practitioner. When we open ourselves to this practice, we create the potential for our lives to be transformed in ways that might seem subtle but are truly life-altering. Though many of the benefits of mindfulness are personal and internal—improved concentration, expanded sense of awareness, increased patience, and enduring states of tranquility, to name a few—some important aspects of the practice can positively affect our external experience as well. Take communication, for example. Using mindfulness in our communication with others can improve our relationships and help us navigate even the most difficult conversations. If you already have a practice of cultivating mindfulness, a little intention is all you’ll need to start applying it to your communication. If you haven’t yet developed a pra...

New fascinating insights on the psychological effects of Hugging

#Hug #Hugging #Emotions #Stress #Mood #BlackMaleTherapist #Psychotherapy #MentalHealth During the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and restrictions, one of the things many people missed most was getting hugged by their loved ones. This led to an increased interest in the positive effects of hugging in the psychology research community and several studies published over the last year have yielded new insights on what it means to us to be hugged. Here are four of the most interesting new insights into the science of hugging. 1. Getting hugged by others, but also hugging yourself, reduces stress hormones A recent study by researcher Aljoscha Dreisoerner from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and his team focused on the positive effects of hugging on stress (Dreisoerner et al., 2021). Interestingly, the scientists not only investigated how getting hugged by other people could reduce stress, but also whether hugging yourself (e.g., when other people are not ...

The Unique Benefits of Teletherapy.

#BlackTherapist #Teletherapy #Triple5LightTherapy.com #AfricanAmerican #Therapist b y Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Teletherapy is seen as an inferior alternative to in-person therapy. But while it has some drawbacks, online therapy has plenty of pluses, too. First the drawbacks: Some clients miss their therapist’s office, which they associate with safety and healing, said Jodi Aman , LCSW, a psychotherapist in Rochester, N.Y. Technical difficulties—from poor internet connections to visibility issues–can interrupt sessions. Finding a private, quiet space at home can be challenging. Still, many people prefer teletherapy. As psychologist Regine Galanti , Ph.D, pointed out, the biggest myth about teletherapy is that it’s “a plan B approach.” Many of Galanti’s clients have been doing online sessions for years. Her teen clients, in particular, like attending therapy in their own space. Teletherapy is also convenient. “[I]t removes time barriers for people to ...

5 Communication Tweaks That Increase Intimacy

#Communication #trust #Empathy #Attachment #mirroring #reciprocating #apology #defensive #Psychology “Working on our communication” is one of the most commonly cited reasons couples seek relationship counseling. This is not surprising. Often, over time, even the best of relationships can fall victim to negative communication patterns. This is especially true for couples who find themselves under a lot of stress because, naturally, when our coping mechanisms are overtaxed, we default to older—more primitive and less mature—ways of coping (cf. Weinberger & Stoycheva, 2019). A colleague used to say that when we are distressed, we become caricatures of ourselves—i.e., our worst qualities become exaggerated. It gets harder to employ our most thought-out and balanced ways of interacting with the world. However, several tweaks only require a little time or effort, just repetition, and attention to our automatic behaviors that we can make to improve our connection with our partners. ...

Triple5Light Therapy

Search This Blog