How to Control Your Anger

We often hurt the people we love the most. And with this pandemic back in full swing, we are again confined to tight quarters with those very people. Alarmingly, domestic abuse has risen worldwide, and according to a recent survey of 1200 married and engaged couples co-quarantining, couples are fighting more.

You might be feeling more irritable too. But there are ways to control your anger so your love story doesn’t end in chalk lines. Here are a few tips.

Don’t vent your anger on objects

You have probably heard the advice to punch something if you are angry. Just let off a little steam. Scream. Kick. Stab a voodoo doll instead of your lover.

First off, a voodoo doll is a bad idea. What if your partner finds it?

“Ah, hun, I found this doll of yours with all these pins in it. And well, babe…it kind of looks like me. Do we need to talk?”

Awkward.

But it doesn’t matter if you are punching a door, a punching bag, or a creepy effigy of your lover. Hurting objects makes you more likely to hurt your partner.

In a study by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, subjects were asked to write a creative essay. They were all privately given the same feedback — their essay sucked. No, it wasn’t just horrible. It was “one of the worst they had ever read.” (As a fragile writer, I can tell you this kind of criticism tends not to go over well.)

Half the subjects were then allowed to punch a punching bag to vent their frustration. The other half had to sit with the pain of being a crappy writer.

Both groups then played a videogame where they got to blast their opponents with noise as punishment for losing.

You might think the group who had vented their anger before the videogame would give a less severe punishment, but the opposite happened. Those who had punched the punching bag blasted their opponents more.

The belief that acting aggressively reduces aggression is called catharsis theory. And study after study shows it doesn’t work. Instead, experts recommend meditating or distracting yourself with happier thoughts.

So save the punching bag for the boxing ring, not the bedroom.

Call a time-out

Anger is the red tide that covers deeper relationship issues. Beneath the surface, it is not anger that is driving your emotions. It is hurt, shame, vulnerability, neglect, or other emotions.

But if you let your anger become the driving force, those deeper issues never come to the surface. That’s when you have to call a relationship time-out.

Stop and think about why you are angry. Don’t blame your partner. Instead, dig deep and communicate why you are angry.

And when you talk, don’t do it on an empty stomach. Which brings me to my next tip…

Eat pasta

You have probably heard the term “hangry” to describe what happens when hunger and anger collide. When blood sugar levels drop, many people get cranky. A recent study sought to find the relationship between glucose levels and anger.

In this anger experiment, participants were taught how to measure their glucose levels throughout the day. They were then sent home with a voodoo doll and told it represented their spouse. The subjects were allowed to stick their voodoo spouse with 1 to 51 needles depending on how mad they were at their real spouse.

The researchers found that when subjects had lower glucose levels, they stuck more pins in their voodoo doll/spouse.

Hunger doesn’t just affect couples. Studies also show when judges are hungry they are more likely to convict. When stomachs growl, people get ornery.

So if you are on one of those low-carb diets, you might need to take it down a notch. You need all the bread you can eat so you won’t maim your loved ones.

Look at kittens

This advice is getting stranger and stranger, but you are still reading, so you must have some unaddressed anger issues. No worries. Cute baby animals will help.

In one research study, subjects played the classic game Operation. One group was shown puppies and kitten before performing fake surgery, and the other was shown adult dogs and cats.

The group who looked at the baby animals had better focus and dexterity than the group who looked at adult animals. The researchers found that looking at cute baby animals reduces stress levels, which thereby improves concentration.

So every time you want to strangle your partner, just look at kittens and go to your happy place.

Anger is the red tide that covers deeper relationship issues. Beneath the surface, it is not anger that is driving your emotions. It is hurt, shame, vulnerability, neglect, or other emotions.

I have never been much of a fighter until my last relationship with J. Edgar.* For the first time, I got irritated…a lot. So I made a bizarre request. I asked him to send me a picture of himself as a child.

Every time I would get angry at him, I would look at that picture.

In the weathered snapshot, he is about ten and is flexing his biceps like superman. His eyes are fierce and unyielding — just a determined boy playacting a man for the camera.

After we broke up, I deleted every picture of him except that one. I still look at it now and again. It reminds me that somewhere inside of him was just a scared, immature kid, afraid to love.

We all carry our past hurts into our current relationships. Sometimes, when we want to drive sharp pins into the heart of our partner (or our partner’s effigy), we must remember that there might be pins in that heart already.

*Names changed to protect my demons.

—

Previously published on medium

*******************************

***