Most of us have been in an extremely difficult situation at one point or another. Perhaps your character was tested or your happiness or comfort was infringed upon. You constantly struggle with overcoming feelings of anger so you can continue living your life. However, you keep replaying the situation over and over again in your head until it becomes the focal point of your day. Consequently, that can cause you to have a "bad day" or multiple bad days in a row. Anger is a major distraction and can be debilitating.
Learning to manage feelings of anger is paramount for your health. If not handled effectively over time anger creates symptoms of high blood pressure, headaches, and can even cause more serious complications.
Here are a few ways you can keep calm when you're frustrated:
Zen out
Deep breaths are your best friend! When you feel the anger bubbling back up, take a few deep breaths and that instantly provides relief. Remind yourself that you won't be in this situation forever.
Focus your energy on doing things that you're passionate about.When negative thoughts pop up, just shift your focus.
If you're not sure what your passion is, I wrote up a guide that will teach you how to find it.
You can grab it here.
Don't let it get pent-up
Talk about it! Recently, I was frustrated with a friend (and they were completely unaware) I felt like a kettle about to blow, and I knew I was going to if I didn't say something. I finally decided to approach them about it, and I felt significantly better. It was like a load was lifted off my shoulders. It doesn't matter if the person you approach receives your comments well. The most important thing is to get that anger off your chest.
Keep in mind that it's okay to vent. Complain once a day for 15 minutes if you need to, you can confide in a friend or family member, then let it be done for the day. Complaining constantly throughout the day will just get you riled up.
Try to understand where the other person is coming from
It's easy to jump to conclusions, and even harder to give people the benefit of the doubt. The mature mindset is to realize that people act the way they do for a reason. Granted it may not be a warranted reason, but a reason nonetheless. Try to see it from their perspective; even if you'd act more reasonably if you were in their shoes. That's beside the point, the point is to get some form of understanding because understanding creates compassion. If you feel a tiny bit of compassion towards someone that helps lessen your anger towards them, and perhaps will encourage you to approach the situation a little kinder.
Count your blessings
If you're in a frustrated state, understand that at the end of the day life wasn't meant to be a cakewalk. Everything can't go perfectly all the time, otherwise, how would you grow? You grow through various experiences both good and bad. Speaking of good, I'm sure you can think of a few situations when life was. A great exercise to do to reduce your frustration is to mentally make a list of things you're grateful for and that are going well in your life.
You can take that one step further by trying to figure out if there's a nugget of good or a learning lesson in what you're going through now. Your character is being challenged, and you'll be required to dig deep, but self-growth doesn't come from digging shallow.
In order win and overcome the situation (and winning has nothing to do with an external reward, but instead an internal reward) is to handle it maturely, by exercising your patience, self-control, generosity or whatever characteristic that needs to come into play in your circumstance.
Use anger to spark creativity
This may sound strange, but when you're angry it's easy to handle a situation how most people do; by yelling, throwing tantrums, ignoring, etc. Instead, consider how you can approach it tactfully. It's hard to handle a situation like a mature adult, calm but sternly with minimal casualties (i.e. without other people angry or offended). Challenge yourself to see if that's possible.
Frustrating situations are great for self-reflection. Think about how you initially handled it and analyze how you reacted when you were challenged.
Did you do more? Probably not. It's hard to be our reasonable and mature selves when we're Angry. However, we should be better. We should do more, be more generous, kinder, and understanding when we're mad. That's a true testament to your character. It's easy to be nice when other people are nice to you and things are going well, but it's not when things aren't.