EBRR Class Report # 20: Men’s Anger Management.
Begin: 3/1/2025
Finish: 4/8/2025
Title: Men’s Anger Management
Instructor: Ms. Cota.
Why I choose to take this class:
To learn more about anger management. So I could manage my own anger and other difficult feelings. Learning these skills will help me interact with others and avoid conflicts.
What I learned from this class:
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 has no outlet, resentments, 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 towards 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 lead you to respond that makes 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.
Skill 1: Notice Your Breath:
Skill for building mental strength and help you practice staying in the present. Pay attention to your breath from moment to moment.
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 isolations, 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.
Skill 2: STOP.
S-Stop whatever you are doing or saying.
T-Take a deep breath.
O-Observe your feeling, thoughts, and sensations.
P-Pick a behavior – that support your value, try something like walking away rather than attacking, taking the other persons perspective, lower your voice or smile.
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 choose 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 give you a sense you have won. The long-term consequences: high blood pressure, depression, obesity, migraines, strokes, anxiety, low self esteem, drug and alcohol addiction and lower-quality relationships.
Skill 3: Notice Your Body:
Notice the physical sensations you feel in your body from moment to moment. You can become more aware of physical symptoms (like headache, back pain, tightness).
Anger Response:
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 increase 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 clench, muscle twitch, muscle tensing, grinding your teeth.
Skill 4: Notice Your Thoughts:
Your thoughts play an important role in your feelings and behavior. Pay attention to your thoughts.
Anger and Beliefs:
As you grow up, you develop 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.
Skill 5: Breathe Deeply:
In difficult situations you take shorter and quicker breath – shallow breath, which tends to speed up your heart rate and lead to feeling of anxiety. Slow, deep breath will help you slow down, think more rationally and choose helpful response to anger.
Challenging Beliefs:
After an activating event, you can actually challenge unhelpful beliefs and get the consequences you want. Through camera check and rational self analysis to achieve the desired consequences.
Skill 6: Do an RSA:
Challenging irrational thinking is a very effective way to build mental strength and get the consequences you want.
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 an other drugs and 4) get plenty of sleep.
Skill 7: Move with Attention:
Pay attention during day-to-day movement as well. Pay attention to the feelings of your feet lifting off the ground, moving through space and reaching the ground again. Each step is a new movement waiting to be experiences.
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.
Skill 8: RAIN:
R-Recognize the thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
A-Allow the thoughts, feelings just as they are.
I-Investigate sensation, your body, situation, what needs my attention.
N-Nonidentification You are not your anger, reaction or story.
Anger And Others:
Anger is often a response to behaviors or opinion 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, 4) setting healthy boundaries.
Skill 9: Relax Your Muscles:
Your body can become tense after stressful interactions with others. Progressive muscle relaxation, helps your body relax. It can improve health by lowering blood pressure and heart rate, increasing blood flow, decreasing anxiety and reducing pain.
How will this class contribute to my success upon release:
Understanding anger and how to manage it has helped me survived my incarceration without conflicts. I will apply the anger management skills when I am interacting with family, friends and the community.
