On my way into work this week I witnessed two drivers engage in a scary road rage dual.  They were driving erratically, cutting each other off and using “expressive gestures,” shall we say.  It was upsetting to watch as it put them, and all of us around them, in danger.  All for what, I thought?  Being slighted by someone passing you?  Or merging ahead of you?  But then I thought about the old saying, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  I’ve hurled a few rocks myself, if I’m totally honest. And who hasn’t?  In telling my tale from the morning commute to co-workers, we all noticed how easily people lose their cool.   Did it start in the pandemic, people so isolated and stressed?  Is it the political and economic climate?  Regardless of the cause, we all could use some help with our reactions when we get upset with someone.  Especially with the people we love the most, who we tend to snap at the most as well.  So today, I’m reviewing the 5 R’s of Anger Management (from Yolanda Briscoe, PsyD), as it’s a helpful reminder that HOW we choose to respond to people is totally within our control, no matter the provocation.

Anger itself is not a bad thing, in fact, it can be really healthy.  Anger is a natural feeling in response to a perceived threat.  But often our first response, created out of our fight/flight/freeze reaction, will be actions disconnected from the thinking part of our brain.  In our quick reactions, we tend to act (including texting and emailing) without thinking through the consequences.  Most arguments or confrontations are a result of the escalation of initial reactions.  So the first R is Reaction.  Practice stopping yourself from that first reaction, knowing that NO reaction IS a reaction.  Doing nothing IS doing something.  You are preventing yourself from doing something impulsive that you may indeed regret.

The next R is Retreat.  Practice slowing things down and using breathing or counting, or whatever works, to step back and calm down.  Reducing the sense of immediate threat will help you re-engage your frontal lobe to assess the current situation more accurately.  Sometimes this may actually mean asking the other person for a bit of time to calm down.  Then Re-evaluate.  Try to be curious.  What was it that activated you?  What was behind the anger, perhaps sadness, hurt, fear, anxiety?  Ask yourself, what was it that you wanted/needed that you didn’t think you got?  Also, be honest with yourself about your potential role in the conflict.  Did you make things worse, lash out out of frustration?  Were you trying to control something/someone that you in fact, can’t/shouldn’t control?  Understanding your role can really be a powerful tool in resolving stressful interactions.  

Once you’ve gotten a better understanding of the situation, it’s time to Regroup.  You get to decide how to work with your emotions.  You can journal, use humor, talk compassionately to yourself, use mindfulness, or ask for support from others.  Praise yourself for not letting yourself get hooked by a baited situation.  Once you have thought through what you want to say or do while in a reasonable state of mind and with compassion, you can Return.  Approach the person involved but avoid blaming, attacking, or reengaging in a power struggle.  Use “I” statements to share your experience and what you both regret and desire as a way to initiate a connection to repair a broken trust.

It seems so simple and, yet, it’s so hard!  But like everything else, we can learn to slow ourselves down and develop new habits.  Research shows that learning to control our reactions offers a lot of benefits, including reducing stress, improving relationships, and enhancing our overall well being.  We impact our health by lowering blood pressure, reducing headaches and decreasing our risk of heart conditions.  For our mental health, anger management skills teach us how to communicate and ask for what we need in healthy ways.  We reduce the incidents of depression, anxiety and other emotional problems.  Overall, we improve our sense of ourselves, feeling proud and confident in how we handle our lives and our relationships.  This does in fact spread to both work and personal relationships.  Other people learn to trust us, and we can have trust in ourselves.

We all know the shameful feeling when you have to go back and apologize to someone for doing or saying something you regret.  It’s such a relief when we can prevent an action or statement, rather than having to clean up our reactive mess.  And maybe that’s a tool in itself!  Before you react to someone, imagine having to explain yourself later.  Will you feel proud of yourself or will you feel embarrassed?  The 5 R’s are a great reminder of our ability to regulate our responses and be the person we want to be. As the great psychologist and human rights advocate, Victor Frankl wrote:  Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  Ok, so maybe SPACE is an S word, not an R word. But managing our anger well can certainly lead to REJOICING.