Anger management tips that work for me

Zainab Hussain, Grade 11, Our Own English High School, Dubai

Grade 11, Our Own English High School, Dubai

One of the main things I’ve learnt through the transition from childhood to teenage is the importance of controlling anger. Unfortunately, I learnt it the hard way: through experience. I realised that I end up regretting almost everything that I do or say when I’m angry. More importantly, it hurt and upset the people I hold most important in my heart.

I learnt, and am still learning, how to deal with this intense emotion which sometimes renders people incapable of maintaining their usual composure. These are a few protocols I try to follow whenever I feel myself slipping into the clutches of anger:

1) Trying my best to curb the temptation of saying or doing whatever it is that my mind is screaming at me to do to get back at the person/situation that angered me.

2) Pretending to myself that I’m not angry and that I don’t care about the situation. This sounds like the coward way out, but it helps maintain outer calm.

3) Talking about it with someone who’s close to me and understands me. Bottling it all up often results in eventual outbursts of temper.

4) Sleeping on it. This sounds stupid too, but I often myself seeing the situation through a whole new lens after a nap. It gives people the ability to ponder the situation in an intellectual way, without being blinded by turbulent emotions.

Anger may be just another human emotion, but it often brings out the dark side of people and results in many misunderstandings. It is also the cause of the damage of many relationships. A polite and sweet person may be understood by many as rude and mean simply because they were witness to his/her anger. I would like to conclude with the wise words of one of my favourite characters of the Harry Potter series, Sirius Black: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on, that’s who we really are.”