You know those times when you begin to feel angry and you just know you’re about to explode? You feel the the flash of irritation in your eyes, the pressure building up your neck and into your head, and that instant – runaway train – rush that takes over before you’ve even realised what’s happening? Anger has a way of charging in and running the show if we’re not wise to its nasty tricks. It can catch us off guard at work, in traffic, or in the middle of a conversation that suddenly turns bad.
The thing is, though, anger itself isn’t a bad thing. Angry feelings are a part of being human and expressing anger (appropriately) does actually serve a valuable purpose. It’s what we do with our feelings of anger that matters. It’s knowing how to calm down from anger that matters. Knowing a few practical anger management strategies can help calm the body, slow the racing thoughts, and give us enough space to choose what comes next – before we get to the stage of damaging something important or beautiful.
These aren’t your usual “count to ten” kind of tips — they’re based on what actually works in real life, And they’re what we see helping people every day inside our online Anger Management Hacks course.
1. Cooling the Body Calms the Brain
When anger flares, the amygdala has taken over. Our heart rate rises, breathing quickens, muscles tense — quick as lightning, everything tightens and speeds up. Trying to “think” our way to a calmer state rarely works when our body’s primitive ‘fight or flight’ mode has kicked in. But working on cooling our whole system down physically helps the ‘thinking’ part of the brain to catch up.
When you know you’re starting to arc up, try this: take a deep, deep breath, exhale really slowly, get away from the triggering situation and grab a faceful of fresh air. Also do something like running cool water over your wrists, or have a drink of cold water, if you can. Changing things up like this signals to your body’s nervous system that you’re not actually in danger anymore (it’s fired up because it thinks you are). Small actions like these can help to reset your body – and it’s far faster than forcing yourself to “just calm down.”
💡 In our Anger Management Hacks online course, we show you how to train your body’s natural calming response so you can regain control quicker — even in the heat of the moment.
In simple terms, cooling the body sends a “stand down” signal to the brain. There’s a whole lot of scientific explanation to this, but we won’t complicate the discussion by going into it right now.
2. The Iceberg Technique — Are You Aware of What’s Beneath the Surface?
Usually, anger isn’t about the actual thing – the ‘anger trigger’ – that set you off. It’s more likely to be about what’s sitting underneath the surface – and you’re probably not even consciously aware of half of it. Suppressed or repressed emotions like shame, fear, guilt, feeling disrespected or worthless, or living with feelings of powerlessness – these all stay within us. Anger is just the part that shows itself when these emotions have not been dealt with. Sometimes, the emotions go a long way back. Often, they go back to childhood. We’re not even talking about big, bad, nasty experiences – sometimes the emotions can stem from simple, unfortunate or unavoidable experiences. So don’t be thinking that because you haven’t been beaten up as a child that you don’t have unresolved emotional hurts. Just like an iceberg, what you can see above the water line is minute compared to what’s below.
When you develop an understanding of yourself and can begin recognise that deeper layer of underlying emotions that are subconsciously driving you, you can begin to understand what your anger’s really trying to tell you. So, next time you start feel anger rising, ask yourself: What’s really under this? That small question alone can shift the whole experience. In fact, even better – start working on yourself to understand these emotions before you find yourself facing your anger triggers! This is so much more effective!
💡 We help people map out their own “anger iceberg” inside the course — it’s a simple but powerful way to uncover the real story behind the emotion.
3. Pause Before You Pounce
You know that split second between the ‘anger trigger’ hitting and you know you’re feeling triggered and the moment you react – i.e. explode? That’s where all your power sits. It’s not easy to grab it in the moment, but with practice, you can. You just have to know it’s coming.
Take one slow, deep breath. Drop your shoulders. Feel your feet on the ground. Stop. Think. Even a tiny pause can stop an automatic reaction in its tracks. You’re not ignoring your anger — it still needs to be dealt with – you’re just giving your ‘thinking brain’ time to catch up to your ‘reptilian brain’ before it unleashes your mouth or fists.
💡 Inside the Anger Management Hacks online program, we teach grounding techniques that make that pause more natural and automatic — so you can keep control when things get heated.
4. Tell Yourself a Different Story
Anger feeds off the stories we have in our minds. Things we believe and things we tell ourselves. “They don’t respect me.” “This always happens.” “I can’t believe they did that.” Those thoughts in our minds serve to pour fuel on the fire of our anger. If we choose to tell ourselves a different story – reframing, it’s called – we can defuse the anger we feel somewhat. This doesn’t mean condoning another person’s poor behaviour. It doesn’t mean letting anyone ‘off the hook’. But it does means widening the lens, or seeing things from a different perspective. Developing our emotional intelligence skills becomes very powerful here.
Try swapping “They did that on purpose” with “Maybe they didn’t realise how it came across.” Or “I always lose my temper” with “I’m learning to catch myself sooner.” That tiny mental shift changes your whole physical response.
💡 We cover cognitive reframing tools inside Anger Management Hacks to help turn that mental noise into clarity.
5. Debrief, Don’t Dwell
After an outburst of uncontrolled anger, our emotions are pretty heightened for a while. A lot of people find they swing between guilt at their behaviour and still justification for why they believe it was warranted. Neither helps much, really. What does help is reflection on what happened. If we can set aside the judgement of ourselves – on what we did or didn’t do, or should or should not have done – we can self-reflect. Look with actual curiosity at what set us off and why.
Ask yourself: What set me off? What was really underneath it? What worked (even a little bit) to help me recover and ‘get a grip’? Each honest look gives you data. And the more data you have, the quicker you start spotting patterns. Maybe a trusted friend, family member or loved one can suggest a pattern they might have seen.
Anger management isn’t about perfection. Rather, it’s about developing self-awareness and working on steady progress in our everyday life. Every flare-up can teach you something about how you’re feeling, if you can just let it.
💡 In the online course, we provide opportunities for you to reflect on situations you face, and that make it easier to track and learn from your reactions.
Support Makes All the Difference
You can absolutely start using these strategies on your own. In fact, we thoroughly recommend it. We all should use these strategies! But we have learned that lasting change happens faster when you’ve got a bit of guidance and support. Someone to help you see what you can’t yet see, someone to talk through issues with and to help us see things clearly. And to keep us practising when life gets complicated.
That’s exactly why we built Anger Management Hacks — a short, practical online course packed with the tools, insights and real-world strategies that help you stay calm, even when life’s anything but.
You don’t have to figure it all out by yourself. But you do have to take charge. Our mental health and emotional state of health is our responsibility – and that includes our responses to anger triggers and how we manage our anger. With the right information, understanding and support, calm really can become your new default. Give it a try today.