5 Best Anger Management Exercises you Need

Anger is an intense emotion that can take over your mind and body, making you act in ways you couldn’t imagine. Fortunately, mastering some anger management exercises can help you regain control of your anger!

As a mental health therapist, and a former angry person, I know first-hand how out of control anger can make you feel, and what it takes to begin feeling better! This post is ALL ABOUT anger management exercises.

Understanding Anger

Before managing anger, it’s important to understand it. Anger gets a bad rep, but it can be a pretty useful emotion. Anger is considered a secondary emotion, meaning it hitches a ride with other emotions, never popping up on its own.

The purpose of this is so that anger can give you power and protection. Other emotions, like sadness and hurt, might feel painful, so anger steps in to protect you from that sensation. Start thinking about what other emotions are hiding behind your anger. Once you know, you can begin addressing the needs of the primary emotions. Click here to understand how to respond to other emotions.

Anger could also be protecting you from an unhealthy relationship, being disrespected, the pain of grief, or triggers from childhood trauma. It gives you energy to take action and defend yourself from whatever the perceived threat is.

Exercise #1: Meditation for Anger

One of the most important anger management exercises is meditation. If you are turned off by the idea of meditation, hear me out! Meditation can be used for more than just clearing your mind, it can be a way to better understand yourself and your inner world.

To meditate for anger, begin in a relaxed position, closing your eyes. Start to imagine something that angers you. Begin to notice where you feel it in your body. Lean into the space where you feel anger and allow yourself to explore what’s there. What about this situation is making you angry? What older memory might this anger be tied to? What do your body and mind need to do to feel safe? Click here for a guided video on Meditation for Anger.

Exercise #2: Progressive Relaxation

One of the hardest parts of anger management is stopping the anger once it has already started. So how to can you notice the signs of anger more quickly?

Typically, your body will give cues that you are getting angry, such as clenched fists, heated cheeks, or tight shoulders. Progressive relaxation is a technique to become more aware of your body, as well as release tension that you may not notice you are holding.

To practice progressive relaxation, start at the top of your head and activate muscles, one group at a time, for about 10 seconds before releasing. Continue this all the way to your toes. For example, raise your eyebrows, hold for ten seconds, release. Clench your jaw, hold for ten seconds, release.

You will probably notice areas of your body that were activated without your awareness. The more you practice progressive relaxation, the easier it will be to identify when your body is being activated. If you notice the anger being activated, you can make the choice to walk away or calm down before it takes over.

Click here for a guided Progressive Relaxation video.

Exercise #3: Pause and Breathe

Once you are able to recognize the physical cues that you are getting angry, you can take action more quickly to regulate your system. Remember, the deeper you get into your anger, the more difficult it is to pull it back. The key is in stopping it at the beginning!

Breathing is one of the fastest ways to regulate our systems. If you notice, the way you breathe when you’re angry is typically short, strained, and a quicker pace than usual. This type of breathing helps keep your heart rate up and gives your body the energy it needs to fight the threat or to protect yourself. However, if you aren’t actually in a situation where that is necessary, it creates pent up energy that wants to be let out.

So, you begin to notice heat in your face, tension in your muscles, maybe even tears in your eyes. As soon as you notice this, PAUSE and breathe. It is very difficult to use logical thinking in these moments, because your body is going into survival mode, so just get into the habit of PAUSING.

Pause. Take a deep breath in and a long slow breath out. Pause some more. Practice this every time you notice tension in your body, so that it becomes a habit. Eventually, it will become a natural reaction.

Slow breathing (specifically breathing OUT slowly) tells your body to calm down. Once you are calm, your brain starts to get out of survival mode, your frontal lobe turns back on, and you are able to make more rational decisions from there.

Exercise #4: Explore your Patterns

One of the anger management exercises that helps best with long term healing is to explore your patterns. Gaining understanding of why your body believes it needs protection and power in different situations can help you shift your thinking and heal the anger triggers.

Start by keeping an anger log. Write down every time that you get angry, write down the details surrounding the event, and write down any thoughts you have around the event. For example, “I got angry this morning when my dog peed in the house.” My thoughts around this are, “She should be potty trained already, and I’m tired of having to pick it up.” Once you write down your log, you should be able to see themes, such as feeling overwhelmed, powerless, or unappreciated. If you struggle to see themes on your own, an anger log is a great thing to bring to your therapy sessions to discover patterns together!

Exploring your patterns helps you to address core needs, or to shift perspective if your thinking patterns are part of the problem. A personal example of this is when I used to have road rage. After exploring, I recognized that my belief was, “People are in MY way.” It helped my anger when I shifted my thoughts around this to, “People are just existing around me, and they have just a much a right to share the road as I do.” Another belief was, “People are jerks,” because they would cut me off. Shifting my belief to, “It’s not about me. People don’t know better, or they might be struggling with something,” helped me to feel less angry about it.

Exercise #5: Find your Power

If anger is stepping in often to give you power, perhaps you are feeling powerless in other areas of your life. Regaining power and control on your own terms might help anger take a back seat.

It is important to understand your thinking patterns first, because it can give you insight into what kind of power you might be missing. Are you feeling powerless in your relationships? Are you feeling angry because you are overwhelmed at work? Are you feeling powerless because you believe people, or the world, are out to get you?

There are many things that can increase personal power, such as communication skills in relationships, boundaries, creating healthy habits to reduce overwhelm, ending unhealthy relationships, gaining physical power through exercise or self-defense classes, or even finding power in shifting thinking patterns, like focusing on what’s in your control, instead of what’s out of your control.

Begin writing down areas where you feel powerless and identify what things you can do to feel more powerful in a healthy way.

Begin These Anger Management Exercises Today!

These anger management exercises helped me become a more peaceful person, and with time and practice, they can help you too! I hope you enjoyed learning about these anger management exercises!