Book Report # 57 : Men’s Anger Management.
Begin: 3/1/2025
Finish: 4/8/2025
Title: Men’s Anger Management.
Author: The Change Company
Why I choose to read this book:
To learn more about anger management so I could meet my own goals around managing anger and other difficult feelings. Learning the skills to better manage my anger.
What I learned from this book:
What is Anger:
Anger ranges from feeling a bit irritated to being enraged and violent. Anger expressed inappropriately may lead to violence and other serious consequences. However, if it is stuffed inside of you and had no outlet, resentment, negative behaviors and health problems may result. Anger serves the purpose of calling us to action when we think that something is threatening or unfair. Identifying the feeling and managing it before it gets out of control and choosing helpful response. Appropriately expressed anger can lead to:
– good communication about frustrations.
– healthy personal boundaries.
– the ability to stand up for yourself when threatened.
– Action toward a cause that is important to you.
Unmanaged anger is that it comes from beliefs about the world that aren’t accurate. Maybe your expectation about fairness are unrealistic, or past events that leads you to respond that make the situation bigger than it really is. There are many common ideas about anger that simply aren’t true. Buying into the myth about anger may have led to unhelpful decisions:
– Aggression is a natural response to anger.
– Anger is always beneficial.
– Expressing your anger to blow off steam is healthy.
– Frustration and aggression go hand in hand.
– Other people can cause your anger.
Men and Anger:
Men are often taught that anger is the right response to the situations. Violence and aggression may become responses that feel easier in the short term than seeking help. Use anger and aggression as a way to exert power and control: peer pressure, intimidation, manipulating emotions, sexual coercion, using isolation, minimize, deny or blame, threats, and economic abuse. Rethinking power and control way of coping with anger, instead of fighting for power and control, find equality – respect and consideration for the needs and value of others. Equality behaviors: communication, nonthreatening behavior, shared power, negotiation and fairness, trust and support, honesty and accountability, self confidence and personal growth and respect.
Effects of Anger:
There are different degrees of anger that people experience. Simply noticing these feelings can help you slow down in heated moments and choosing a helpful response. Short term benefits of anger: allow you to mask other feelings, get others attention, get others to do what you want, temporary relieve stress and gives you a sense you have won. The long term consequence: high blood pressure, depression, obesity, migraines, strokes, anxiety, low self esteem, drug and alcohol addiction and lower quality relationship.
Anger Responses:
When you get angry your body reduces the amount of blood to your digestive system and redirects a greater supply of blood to your brain and large muscles. An increased supply of Adrenaline gives you a burst of energy and provides a rush of excitement. Physical warning signs of anger: face flush, voice gets louder, heart rate and blood pressure rise, fist clenched, muscle twitch, muscle tensing, grinding your teeth.
Anger and Beliefs:
As you grow up, you developed beliefs about yourself and the world around you. Beliefs you established from past experiences shape the way you see the present. Some thoughts and beliefs may be causing you problems with anger. Your beliefs about anger may include thinking errors: awfulizing, rhetorical questions, statement of facts, loaded words, blaming, demands, absolutes and I can’t. You can notice the types of thoughts that are challenging for you and replace them with positive beliefs.
Challenging Beliefs:
After an activating event, you can actually challenge unhelpful beliefs and get the consequences you want. Through the camera check and rational self-analysis to achieve the desired consequences.
Healthy Physical Habits:
There is a strong connection between your mental, emotional and physical health. Developing healthy physical habits can make it easier to manage your anger and emotions. Wellness habits that are beneficial: 1) Get physical activity. 2) Make healthy eating choices. 3) Avoid alcohol and other drugs and 4) Get plenty of sleep.
Mental health to help train your brain to pay attention in the present moment: 1) Notice your breath, 2) STOP – Stop, Take a deep breath, Observe an pick a behavior, 3) Notice your body, 4) Notice your thoughts, 5) Breathe deeply, 6) Do an RSA, 7) Move with attention, 8) RAIN – recognize, allow, investigate and nonidentification. 9) relax you muscles.
The Anger Iceberg:
Other emotions might be connected to or hiding under your anger. Anger is often the tip of a much larger Iceberg, with many other difficult feelings, thoughts and experiences hidden beneath the surface, with patience, willingness and curiosity, you can get beneath the anger Iceberg.
Anger and Others:
Anger is often a response to behaviors or opinions of other people. Anger is a natural feeling, but violence and aggression are not natural behavior. You don’t control other’s behavior, thoughts or opinion. The only person you control is yourself. Few tools for communicating your feelings: 1) talking assertively, 2) sharing constructive feedback, 3) managing conflicts, and setting healthy boundaries.
How will this class contribute to my success upon release:
Understanding anger and how to manage it has helped me survive my incarceration without conflicts. I will apply the anger management skills when I am out in the communities.
