If you’re prone to lose your cool, you’re not alone. Just this week we saw three major public meltdowns: South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” at President Obama during his speech to Congress about health care.
Then pro tennis player Serena Williams released a feisty tirade against a line judge at the U.S Open. (Williams was later fined $10,000 for the outburst and lost the match due to point penalties).
Finally, Kanye West at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday rushed onstage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video, grabbed the mike and said Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video was one of “the best videos of all time!”
Take a lesson from these prime time embarrassments: No one’s above losing their cool. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t keep a little rainfall from turning into an all-out thunderstorm.
We talked to Pio Andreotti, Psy.D at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, New York for some tips on how to temper your temper during hot situations.
1. Recognize your behavior will be followed by consequences
Is your coworker making you mad? Want to slash the tires of someone parking in your spot for the 50th time?
“If you can recognize what the outcome of your outburst is going to be, it might help you prevent it,” says Andreotti. “In an office setting, getting that frustrated can be detrimental. We might not lose $10,000 [like Williams did], but we might lose our jobs.”
2. Know what anger feels like
Maybe your teeth clench when you’re mad, or you get a headache, or your stomach starts to hurt—we all have physical cues that alert us we’re reaching a near-boiling point. If you know how to sense an approaching meltdown, you can do something about it before you do something you might regret.
3. Then—get out of the situation
“You don’t want to get stuck in a situation where you’re up and out of control,” says Andreotti. Get up and take a walk. Or go to the bathroom—anything. You might try massaging your temples, or simply taking a long, deep breath.
4. Don’t let it build up
From your family, to your career, to the bad economy: if you’re looking for a reason to be anxious you usually don’t have to cast a very wide net. The problem is when you bottle it up, you might be prone to a Serena-style breakdown.
To mitigate the damage of built-up stress and anger, do something once a week to reduce your overall anxiety levels. Take a walk, create a standing coffee date with your buddies, sign up for a new exercise class. “If you can do one thing for yourself to reduce your overall level of stress, the likelihood you’ll get that angry will be reduced,” says Andreotti.
5. If all else fails—say you’re sorry
West apologized on his blog for stealing Swift’s awards-ceremony thunder, which, according to the experts, is the right thing to do after an outburst. But, it’s not a get-out-of-jail free card.
The good thing about apologizing: It sets you down the right path of correcting your behavior. Usually (hopefully) if you say you’re sorry, that means you’re making an unspoken oath to change that bad behavior. “The idea is that offense has to stop, or you at least have to show you’re in the process of that stopping,” says Andreotti.
The bad thing about apologizing: Just because you say you’re sorry doesn’t mean the other party isn’t still hurt, or that there won’t be lingering repercussions for your behavior. “You can let [the other party know] you crossed a line, but whether they accept the apology or not is out of your hands.”
Source: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/control-your-anger