23 Effective Ways to Deal with Anxiety: How to get Rid of Anxiety and Anger

Life overwhelms us. We feel anxious and angry. We try but despite our best efforts things go awry. You may feel like this happens only to you but in life this is normal. Things sometimes don't go as planned. You try to write the story of life as you want but life writes itself and you find yourself just a spectator. 

The best thing to do in such situations is to become calm. But how? Here are a few tips that can help you better control anger and anxiety.

Key Takeaways

If you are feeling anxious and angry right now read the following list. Otherwise skip to the next one.

In the short term

• When you are anger and stress it is a good idea to drink some cold water
• Stop any action that you are doing and breath. Breath as deeply as you can.
• If you won't admit it, you won't fix it. Admit that you are anxious and angry. It's hard but it is the only way to get calm.
• Your thoughts are storming in a certain direction. Challenge them. Force yourself to look at the brighter and calmer side.
• Do some exercise like walking etc. This will blow off some of your energy that is fuelling your anger and anxiety. 
• Imagine that you are calm. Don't laugh. Just do it and see how it helps.  
• Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. You are surely missing something big. Don't do something that can make you regret your actions. 
• Plugin headphones and turn the music to full volume. Hear some music to meet the mood. Or just... hear something. 
• If you are anxious and angry, your muscles are probably tense. Try to relax them
• Write down whatever shit is going on in your head. Just start writing whatever comes first. 
• Go outside and have some fresh air. Closed spaces don't help much with anxiety and anger.
• Go to the kitchen and eat something.
• Do something that requires concentration. Play a video game or chess. Or solve a crossword 
• If you are standing sit down.If you are inside go outside. If you are out get indoors. Change your environment.

In the long term

• Try your best but keep your expectations low. This helps in keeping your boat in calm waters when a storm hits. 
• Write something daily. Writing brings clarity that helps you solve your problems before they occur. 
• Feel the sensations running in your body. Focus on your feet or some other body part.
• Stop using social media for a week and see the results for yourself. In short a peaceful mind and less anxiety and irritability.
• Some people have nothing but negativity. Avoid such people and see how it makes you optimistic and calm. 
• Light a candle for others. Show kindness and see how it brightens your whole life. 
• Sleep, work, and recreation do everything according to a routine. Familiarity has many benefits. One of them is more peace in life. 
• Avoid using smartphone for a while. 
• Meditate daily and increase your overall happiness.

In the short term

When shit hits the fan and things go sideways, what to do? Here are a few things that can help you handle the situation in a better way.

Drinking cold water

This may seem like nothing but it amazingly helps. If you are anxious and angry drinking a glass of water can make you calm. If you are worried about something going wrong drinking a glass of water can calm your senses. Water cools down and relaxes your body which in turn calms down your brain. 

Take a deep breath

When you are anxious and angry start breathing deeply. This will calm your mind, will help you think and avoid any hasty action. It is important not to act when you are feeling anger and anxiety because there is a high chance that you will do something that you will regret after sometime. So breath deeply and forget everything for a moment.

Running away from your anger, are you?

Sometimes facing yourself is a harsh reality. So we try to avoid ourselves. Especially when we are under the spell of some strong feelings we hide from our thinking mind. This gives those feelings full rein and afterwards, we have nothing but regret. 

The best thing to do in such a situation is to face yourself and admit that you have a problem. Once you admit that something is wrong, it becomes relatively easy to fix it.

Challenge self negative talk

When you are feeling anger and anxiety your thoughts become negative. Even normal actions of the people seem malicious. Instead of going with the flow and thinking as your mind wants to, try and challenge your negative thoughts. Compare your judgements to the recent past when you were calm. Try to come up with positive judgements about people and things around you. Take it as a game. Forcing yourself to see the brighter side of the picture will make you calmer and less anxious.

Take a long walk

Go on a walk somewhere or start walking around your room. This will help you release the negative energy accumulated in your body. Stretching your legs and walking also helps in making you think. And when you are anxious and angry it is always the best course to not act but to think and keep thinking until you are calm and able to act normally. 

Picture yourself calming down

This might sound ridiculous but it can calm your nerves. Imagine that you are calm and handling everything like there is no worry in the world. If you are too anxious and angry this might make you laugh which is good. You will relax and that is all that matters. 

See the bigger Picture 

When you are anxious and angry, you are looking at the smaller picture. Take a moment and think about the larger context in which your situation fits in. You are felling anger and anxiety at someone for doing something and you want to react. But looking at the bigger picture will tell you that you have more important and pressing issues in life that might be affected badly by your reaction. This will help you avoid making stupid decisions. 

Turn on some soothing music (or Otherwise) 

Music has a strange effect in calming the nerves. It can almost release the anger and anxiety from inside you. So turn on some music whatever you like; calm or angry. It will release your pent-up feelings and you will feel calm after some time. 

Progressive muscle Relaxation (PMR)

When you are anxious and angry you involuntarily tense your muscles. This makes your body tired and aching after some time which in turn makes you angrier. So try to relax your body. Concentrate on each part of your body one by one and tense and un-tense the muscles. You will quickly find that as your body relaxes so does your mind. You will feel less anger and anxiety after some time. 

Managing anger through writing

Write down what you are thinking. It doesn't need to make sense. Just write how you feel. This is another way of releasing emotions and calming your mind. Often when we are texting somebody we know about our worries just writing the thing calms us down and we feel relaxed. Writing is a great way to release unwanted burdens. 

Go outdoors to breath some fresh air

Sometimes the indoor environment overwhelms us. You might not know but it can be an accumulating factor to your anger and anxiety. Go outdoors preferably in some wide-open area. If you can go to a park it is still better. Going outdoors and in fresh air releases you from your daily routine . This can greatly help you in getting calm and cool. 

Foods for anxiety

Eating is a harmless activity that gives us instant pleasure. Whatever decreases the discomfort from our mind and body is eventually helpful making us calm in tense and volatile situations.  

Shift your focus

Try to think of something else that may interest you. Solve a puzzle. Think about a philosophical problem. Focus on a dot on the wall. The point is to put your mind off of the current situation. Afterwards, you can come back to the problem that is making you anxious and angry and go at it again.

Feel your own body

Just like breathing this is a kind of meditation, an exercise. When you feel too worried and out of your wits feel your toes and legs. Ground yourself in your body. Your racing mind makes you worried in such situations. It is better to be in your body instead of your head in such situations. It keeps you calm.

Change the situation you are in

If you suddenly become angry about something immediately leave the place where you are. If it is a confrontation with someone that has angered you, it is still better. Being in the same situation that angered you will keep your subconscious mind fed with the angry vibes and emotions. You will keep rethinking the situation and recent memory. It is better not to do that. The best way to achieve this is to leave the place where this happened. 

In the Long term

Anger and anxiety isn't something that comes out of the blue. They have reasons that ossify in your subconscious overtime. To deal with them properly you will have to bring changes in your life.Here are a few tips that can help you in that journey.

Meditate

Meditating every day can surprisingly bring a calming effect on your whole life. You sleep more comfortably and you are more in your comfort zone during waking hours. The result: you feel less anxious and angry every day and you are less easily provoked.

Try meditation for at least a week and see how it helps. There are all sorts of meditations that you can try to calm your mind. You can even try some guided meditation if you are bored by simply sitting on a mat. There are hundreds of guided meditations available on YouTube that can help you calm your nerves. Here is my personal favorite.  

Lower your expectations  

It is too easy to get worried and disappointed in your progress if your expectations are too high. Try as hard as you can but don't expect much. This might seem like a harsh lesson and you might say that this is taking things too hard and is a very pessimistic view. But in the long term, this is the easiest path to success in life. This truth is like a bitter pill that seems hard to swallow. But once you accept it everything else becomes easy.  

Start keeping a diary

Our regrets, anger, and worries accumulate over time until we feel overwhelmed and unable to move on. Instead of bearing the unnecessary burdens of your emotions until you fall, it is better to free yourself of them. But how? One way is to talk to a close friend on a regular basis and share everything. But this is a luxury most people don't have. Another way is to start keeping a diary. Write whatever haunts your mind. Your anger and anxiety at small things, your regrets, your worries, and everything else. After a few days you will feel better and lighter. Keeping a diary has many benefits. One if them is that it provides you with much-needed clear-headedness and calmness.  

Minimize social media use

One major reason for our anger and anxiety is the amount of social media that we consume daily. All sorts of positive and negative emotions from all over the world pour into our wide-open hearts. At the moment everything feels normal but these sorts of things accumulate and imbue our overall behavior with anxiety and anger.

Minimize contact with toxic people

Some people are not worth the effort to hold on to. It is better to let them go and move on. People who only bring toxicity in your life and nothing else are better off at a distance. Don't cut them out completely as it will lead to confrontation and stress. Instead try to gradually move away from them. Such people are not good for your mental health and anxiety.  

Show kindness to others

Showing kindness to your fellow beings has a wide-ranging positive effects on your mental health. Just meeting others with a smile brings positivity to your life. You start to look at everything with optimism. Most often when you show kindness to others, others also behave kindly to you. This kind of feedback fills you with lots of positive energy.  

Daily routine

The more choices you make the more quickly you become tired. Having a daily schedule gives you the freedom to make fewer choices. Most of the things are decided already so you don't have to make many critical decisions. This leaves you with more mental energy to use on other things that are important. As a result, you have a more productive day and you are calmer.  

Minimize mobile phone use

The constant worry of messages and emails fills us with constant anger and anxiety every day. We keep looking at our phones from time to time to see if there are any important messages. Fix a time for reading messages and emails. This will free your mind and you will feel calmer.

Closing Thoughts

These are a few ways that can help you have less anger and anxiety in your life. Hope you find these tips helpful. How do you confront anxiety and anger in your daily life? Let us know in the comments.