In the last article we covered the first five ways to have less anger and live a healthier, happier, and more productive lift because of it. Those ways were meditation, especially mindfulness mediation, getting rid of the news, stop whining and complaining about things, learning to accept the things you can’t change and work on changing the things you can, without whining.
And then we covered the importance of exercise and how to practice gratitude and why that’s important. If you do all of those things you’re already well on your way to controlling your anger and not letting it get the best of you. This is something that is not easy to do. I do most of the things on this list and yet from time to time it is still a struggle.
This isn’t about being perfect as that’s an exercise in futility, rather this is about doing the best you can do with what you have. Because that’s all we can do. So with that being said let’s look at five more options when it comes to helping control our anger and living better lives because of it.
Way To Have Less Anger #6 – Eat Better
You are what you eat. And this applies to more than just physically. When we don’t get vitamins and minerals that we need our body can’t function properly and bad things result from this. So even though we may be eating the right amount of calories or macronutrients if we’re not getting the micronutrients as well then things can go wrong, especially mentally. Mental health and diet are connected at the hip.
The best thing to do is focus on eating nutrient dense foods that have tons of vitamin and minerals in them. For example a spoonful of sugar and honey may have a similar caloric content and macronutrient needs however the honey has many other benefits that the sugar does not. Focus on foods like properly prepared fruits and vegetables, eggs, organ meats, red meats, and high quality dairy and the like.
Way To Have Less Anger #7 – Practice Having A Stoic Attitude
You have more control over your life than you think. When you think you’re the victim of circumstance and things are outside your control you have a negative mindset that’s going to limit you and keep you from achieving all that you want in life. Learn to have a stoic attitude. What does this mean? First off it doesn’t mean becoming numb or cold, that’s not being stoic, that’s an unhealthy extreme. To have a more stoic attitude and to be stoic means the following.
It means to suffer without complaint. The dictionary definition of stoic is “person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining”. It means bearing up under suffering without letting it cave you in and overwhelm you. You simply accept it and keep on keeping on. Granted there are times when this isn’t warranted but for all the little annoyances in life this can work wonders. The military does a good job of building this in boot camp. But you can learn it in your day to day life through practice.
When you suffer minor things, don’t complain, work through them without letting them effect you. Make a conscious effort to not be affected by things. Over time this will build like a muscle and you’ll have a stoic attitude and be less susceptible to anger.
Way To Have Less Anger #8 – Develop Better Communication Skills
People skills are some of the most important skills that you can develop, regardless of what path that you want to take in life. Having good people skills will open more doors and soothe over more misunderstanding than any other type of skills out there. So much of anger, arguments, and disagreements could be solved if people just had a little better communication skills. Now you can never expect others to develop their communication skills so its something you have to work on yourself.
Learning how people function helps to have more patience with them as well as helps to smooth over misunderstandings. I remember one time, a long time ago, I was hanging on those door handle ads after the company I was working for got permissions to do so. Anyways a man stopped me, obviously angry, and said I couldn’t do it. I had been learning sales as the time and instead of trying to avoid him or ignore him, addressed him head on.
I responded with smiles and let the man express his piece. He started out angry but after awhile of letting him express himself he calmed down and eventually talked to me afterward, asking if my company could service his home. I didn’t argue with him, just apologized a little, smiled, nodded, and most importantly let him express his frustrations with everything.
Afterwards he sort of realized he didn’t really care what I was doing and was annoyed with lots of other things. I’m not saying this will always work but it’s just an example of taking a potentially anger building situation and diffusing it and in this case turned it into something profitable, literally.
Develop communication skills there few areas where it won’t help your life.
Way To Have Less Anger #9 – Spend More Time In Nature
I probably sound like a broken record but there are few things that spending more time in nature won’t help with. Seriously mental health, hormonal health, ridding yourself of stress, spiritual development, nature is where it’s at. And it’s the same with learning to have less anger and developing ways to cope with it. The modern world is designed to make you mentally insane, spiritually bankrupt, and physically weak. Nature does the exact opposite.
It make you mentally well, spiritually fulfilled, and physically strong. The more time that you can spend in nature the better off that you’ll be. For example replacing the time you spent watching the news with a walk outside, that alone can do wonders to help reduce anger. Camp, hike, walk, whatever, just spend more time in nature and away from the maddening modern world and crowd. Disconnect and be healed because of it.
Way To Have Less Anger #10 – Avoid Black & White Thinking
There is a right and wrong and there is an up and down. Please don’t misunderstand me when I say you should avoid black and white thinking. I do not mean to say that everything is relative because that’s not true at all. However with that being said so many people fall into black and white thinking that keeps them limited. Many people fall into black and white thinking because they’ve never learned to think for themselves.
Look at ideologies. All white men are evil because they’re oppressors. All women are hypergamous sluts. All people who believe in the wrong god are evil. All people of a different creed, color, or tribe are evil. And so on and so forth. Ideologies are popular because they help people not have to think. Essentially “You don’t have to think for yourself our ideology has already done that for you.” but this leads to foolishness and error.
You have to look at the shades of grey where they exist because there are plenty of things, most things, that exist in shades of grey and black and white thinking isn’t going to accurately cover them. And it’ll lead to anger and misunderstandings. Avoid black and white thinking and watch your anger lessen.
Control Your Anger, Lest It Destroy You
Each and everyday people ruin their lives through not being able to control their anger. A lifetime of decent behavior goes down the drain because of a few moments of not being able to control anger. Anyone who works in law enforcement sees this each and every day, and it’s sad. Because it’s so preventable. Understand that anger is dangerous when used improperly.
Sort of like fire it’s something that you need to be in control of, because as soon as its in control bad things can happen. Learn to control your anger and your life will be immeasurably better because of it. Following these ten measures will put you well on the path to controlling your anger and living a healthier, happier, and more productive life because of it.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
