What will Mismanaged Anger Cost You?

What many potential anger management clients don't realize is that there truly is an economics to anger management. We often fail to get that the time and energy that goes into behaving terribly and the fallout that follows almost never exceeds the possible outcome of behaving appropriately.

To articulate this point, think for a moment you are really upset and hurt at your spouse, friend, family member or someone that you really care about. In a moment of anger, you say or do some things that you really regret. It might take hours, days, weeks or even years to repair the damage from what you have done. The costs are both emotional and physical and the outcome usually effects our credibility with the other person as well as our trust.

Now on the back side, imagine if you used the skills you may have learned from anger control classes and took the time needed to either communicate better, use more emotional intelligence, or simply take a time out from the situation. You may have been able to resolve it quickly. From an economic standpoint, you have saved yourself an immeasurable amount of time because you don't have to deal with all the problems that come from behaving badly.

Gaining skills in anger management is a cost savings on a number of levels. It's not about the money, its about the cost of your relationships with other loved ones. Don't let your anger devastate another relationship that might be incredibly meaningful to you. Take an anger control class or an online anger management class and gain skills before you loose what means the most to you.

Gain Skills in Empathy through Anger Management Courses

Anger is one emotion almost anyone can identify with. Anger can be both a blessing and a curse. Those who get out of control with their anger are often described as having low emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the skill of being able to understand and regulate our emotions as well as sense and understand the emotions of others.

People with high degrees of emotional intelligence tend to be better leaders, do better at work and school and have more intimate relationships. Those who lack empathy tend to have all sorts of problems. Problems might include low levels of intimacy, a history of poor relationships (including friendships), and lack of compassion for others feelings, wants or needs.

Skills in empathy are critical because we are able to use this skills to connect better with others. emotional intelligence as a skill helps us to see things from another persons emotional viewpoint as well as their mental one. When we feel "felt" by another, we tend to not get as hurt or disappointed. Empathy helps aid in lowering our anger response and relating to the person we are speaking to.

Common problems with having empathy toward others are often caused by using filters. Filters are what is used when we listen but have an answer already running in our own mind. Filters also cause us to hear things differently than what is being said. When we learn how to stop our filters, we tend to show more empathy toward other people.

Empathy can be learned by first understanding it, then repeating it. It takes time to become more empathetic, but anyone can learn how to do this. As ones' empathy goes up, the feeling of anger and frustration will go down. All skills learned in anger management course or online anger management class.

Can an Anger Management Class Really Help?

Is anger management really effective? That is a question asked by many with fairly limited research to support a non-subjective answer. Several studies have been done on the effectiveness of anger management treatment where the research has been published in a scientific journals and reviewed by peers. Most of these studies have looked at populations that are in jail or who have committed violent crimes.

The concern with those studies is most people who take anger management programs are not violent offenders and lead normal lives. There are other studies which can be found on the web but only offer data from their own private practice setting, which really isn't valid. This is mostly due to the fact that there is no way to prove the validity of it. Most anger management professionals, no matter how great or successful their practices are, don't have the funds or staff to conduct proper research.

That being said, much can be ascertained from what hundreds or even thousands of previous patients have reported. After providing thousands of pre and post tests and interviewing countless students of anger management, the number one predictor of success in anger management is achieved from a clients overall level of motivation. That is to say, does the client want to change? Think about it, if one doesn't want to change, change will likely not occur. Those who are highly motivated to learn, tend to do better and hold on to the information being taught longer.

The second predictor of success in anger management is a course that focuses on proven tools. Anger classes should cover skills in the following:

1. Skills in Stress Management
2. Gaining skills in Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
3. Learning to respond instead of React
4. Changing ones internal dialog from negative to positive
5. Learning skills in Assertive Communication
6. Expectation management
7. Forgive but don't forget
8. Learning to Retreat and take Time out

The type of the anger management class is less important then the content or delivery method. Clients report the same or similar results from attending live anger management classes as they do from individual coaching for anger management or online anger management classes. The delivery method is a personal choice. Some prefer the face to face courses, while other prefer to take classes at their own pace on their own time.

Anger management is not something that happens overnight. Gaining skills and sustaining change takes time. Those who are working on their own anger control need to adjust their own expectations that learning new skills and perfecting them is a timeless road.

Five Simple Tips for Anger Control for Men and Women

Students sometimes ask the question, "Hey, Dr. Novick, can you give me some quick tips on how to better manage and control my anger?". The answer to that question is simple on many levels but also complex . The short response is that by participating an anger management class or participating in an online anger management course, one will rapidly be exposed some useful skills in better managing or controlling their impulsive urges .

There is no "quick fix" in anger management. Learning to better control our temper takes both time and energy . Anger management is skill based, and practice is the key to success . Just like getting better at golf, tennis, or math, repetition is paramount for creating and retaining new and improved ways of dealing with anger and stress.

Here are a five simple tips that have helped thousands of previous participants . Reading of them just creates awareness, but learning them will take much more

1. Improve communication and listening skills . Almost 80% of communication is non verbal. Communication is learned, therefore we can learn new and improved ways to getting our point across without hurting others .

2. Gain stress management skills . Simple life adjustments such as getting more sleep, eating correctly , and getting more exercise can make a huge difference in how one feels .

3. Improve empathy towards others. Those that have more empathy report improved relationships with others and a stronger sense of well being.

4. Forgive . Skills in forgiveness give us the ability to let go and not hold on to anger.

5. Take time-outs. an oldie but a goodie . Learn the proper way to take a time out from attending a professional anger management course

Anger management is a personal journey to improve interpersonal skills and better our relationships . Anger can often have lasting and damaging effects on others. Learning anger management tips may not be enough . Taking and successfully completing anger class would be an excellent first step in moving towards the sobriety of anger control .