Venting anger versus venting sadness. In the story we discussed not too long ago, you might have thought that the man and woman would have successfully vented out their anger or each other. And that would have been the end of that. And doing that would have actually made them feel better about the entire situation. But is that really true? Do you feel better when you went out your anger?

It's not true. That never happened. Instead, they got more frustrated with each other and stayed that way. In fact, research has identified that venting out your anger in the heat of the moment prolongs your mood, rather than ending it. Yep, there's a reason for everything. And this one is called the ventilation fallacy where in venting, your anger doesn't actually relieve it.

But it prolongs your anger for a length of time and we happens. The worst case scenario is that person goes and screams at someone else. And your anger tends to have a vicious effect on other people as well. In fact, this can amplify your anger further when you release it in the moment, because it increases your emotional arousal within the brain. So what if the couple had come together to discuss their fight later, after feeling sad at what they had done earlier? How would they resolve what they actually said to each other?

How would they come out of it? Would it worsen things? Well, not really. coming out with your problems? discussing things when you're sad with your partner or a friend or even a therapist at times can be really good for you. So my question to you is this.

The next time you have a fight with your partner or you are angry with that person? What are you going to do? Let me tell you some things that will help you deal with your own anger The next time you feel that way with your partner. Do this. wait five seconds in the heat of the moment when you get angry. count down from five to one, and finally zero.

So count this way. 54321 and zero. That's it. The anger dissipates. Why does this happen? Well, this is because it will allow time for the emotional response to actually reach the rational brain and kick in before you make a decision that you may regret later on.

This is really critical because emotional responses, especially when triggered by anger can lead you to do or say things that you don't really mean. And that can be toxic in a relationship. You want to avoid that. So how do you do it, just count down from five, all the way down to zero. And give it those five to six seconds and you will see your anger dissipate. so quickly that you will realize that, hey, I don't have to act, the way I have been acting every time I get angry with my partner.

What's the second thing you can do? Just take slow, deep breaths. Breathe it, it's so simple that we fail to do it. Notice when you're angry that you take shorter breaths, that due to your emotional arousal, you're also breathing through the right side of your nostril indicating that you're stressed that you're dealing with a stressful situation or you are around a person who is causing your stress. Very, very important to learn to relax. Even though there may be a situation that demands your anger.

You don't have to react. You can learn how to respond. And what you need to do. Just take some slow, deep breaths. Number three, take a time out, go for a walk, move away from the situation, walk away from the person who is making you feel angry, however, don't indulge in angry thoughts. It's very easy to notice how anger tends to stay with you for a very long time, despite the actual emotional reaction when it comes to anger being very, very short.

Why does this happen? Have you ever thought about it? Well, if you actually sit down and think about it, that's where the problem lies. If you continue to think about the angry situation, the angry thoughts or angry feelings that you just experienced, even if you move away from the situation, they tend to stay on for a long time. So what do you do? Change the context.

Don't stay in that situation, move away from it and think about something else. Go do something that is completely unrelated to what triggered your anger. Very, very powerful, but hard to implement, because we are emotional creatures. Again, emotional intelligence is something that you practice and get good at over time. And you need not worry about it, because the more you practice it, the more you apply this stuff, you'll see how powerful it actually is. And that's when it comes down to the last thing that you can do.

Whenever you get angry. That is, reframe your thoughts. Now, let's say you've done the third step, you've taken a timeout and you've moved away from the situation you're doing something Else have a thought diary for yourself? Write down in that what exactly happened in the situation? What are the thoughts you're going through? What were the feelings that were running through your mind at that point in time.

Once you have this listed out the situation, the thoughts and the feelings, right down in the columns of the thoughts and feelings, exactly how strongly you felt about each one of them, you can score them from a range of zero to 100 on each one of these, this is very powerful because it allows you to grade exactly how powerful you felt with regard to certain thoughts or feelings. This can also be taken a step further because we are going to reframe your thoughts just by looking at the situation differently, writing down your older and more negative thoughts associated with With a situation along with your new reframe thoughts in this manner else, how you think and make a problem solving process that much easier for yourself. That's the most important thing. Remember, when you are reframing a thought process, you are also putting yourself in a position to solve future problems.

That's the most essential thing. So follow all of these four points again, and see how they apply in your life. And I promise you that they will work for you the next time you find yourself in an argument or having a conflict or you're just plain angry with your partner. I'll see you in the next lecture.