It’s something that happens to all of us, you get really angry at something or someone for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes you feel extremely angry, sometimes you feel really agitated. Experiencing these feelings isn’t pleasant, buy the way you react in such situations has a great impact. One might react very aggressive and another might keep quiet until their feelings of anger fade away. But what is the best way to handle such a situation, as well for yourself as for others? In this article we’ll offer you an explanation.

People who get angry regularly or quite fast or people who experience temper tantrums, often make cognitive errors. Cognitive errors can be defined as an irrational and incorrect train of thoughts, the thoughts you’re having are actually illogical. These cognitive errors often lead to an inappropriate and sometimes extreme reaction to a certain situation. Below here you’ll first find some common cognitive errors that occur with anger. Take a look at yourself and see if you can recognize some errors in your line of thoughts.

Common cognitive errors are:

• Taking everything personal. Sometimes it’s easy to think that the whole world is against you. What you don’t see is that it’s mostly coincidentally circumstances that are the cause and it has in fact nothing to do with you personally.
• Thinking in disastrous scenarios. This comes down to on focussing on the worst in a certain situation. If something befalls you and you instantly think: ‘Now my whole day is ruined!’ then you will only make it worse for yourself. Try to think in terms of solutions and possibilities. Did you miss your train? This gives you the time to get that cup of coffee which you didn’t have time for this morning.
• Low tolerance. How bothersome it can be to experience a setback, it’s just a part of life. Don’t tell yourself that you can’t handle it, you’ll only make it more difficult for yourself. You can endure more than you might think!

How do you cope with anger?

You can do two things: communicate correctly or viewing the problem from another angle and letting it go. Proper communication is very important to prevent a situation from escalating. This will spare you and others lots of time and energy. But how do you do that, communicate correctly? These steps will help you a bit:

• Try to understand the other person. If the other doesn’t act as you please, stop and think how that came to be.
• It’s important that the other person knows what you want or need. It’s possible that this wasn’t known to the other, which caused that he or she didn’t take your needs into account.
• Take the other in account. Try to think along with the other person and come to a solution together. If you don’t, then you can’t neither expect this from the other.

Try to adjust yourself more to reality. Things simply don’t go the way you’d want and people don’t behave exactly as you’d like. Try and look at it from another viewpoint and accept that not everything and everyone is perfect. Worrying about something you can’t change won’t help you, try to think in a way wherein you can alter or improve a situation