|
|
|
Anger and Your Driving: How to Cope with Dangerous Emotions
Are you driving under the influence of impaired emotions?
Dateline: December 4, 2002. Orange County ,California. A 29 year old man was shot to death, an apparent victim of road rage. According to newspaper accounts, he had a reputation for...
Streamlining the Preoperative process for the Open Heart Surgery Patient
Open heart surgery is considered to be a major event for patients, their families, and hospitals. Delays in surgery cause emotional distress for the patient and their family and are costly to the hospital. For these reasons, it is beneficial for all...
Stress Relief
Traffic jams. Toddler tantrums. Deadlines at work. Money troubles. Too much work. Not enough sleep. No time to eat right or even to think. Does this sound familiar? Stress is all around us. It’s an inevitable and normal part of our daily lives....
Stress Research the Fight-or-Flight Response
In 1932, Walter Cannon offered some of the earliest research on stress and established the theory of the "fight-or-flight" response. His work proved that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it reacts instantly by releasing...
Top 5 Ways for an ADD Adult to Have a Happy Holiday
Holidays have the potential to send an adult with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) into overload. Too many details to plan, kids to manage, and family to cope with can turn a good day into a stressful one. The following suggestion can help...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 Steps to Teaching Your Family to Treat You Better
Case #1- Elizabeth, a 40 year old homemaker was always feeling angry and “used” by her family, constantly saying that everybody took advantage of her. She felt that she worked like a slave but her family showed no appreciation or acknowledgement of her many efforts.
Case #2- Bill, a 34 year old husband complained that his critical wife was always angry at him.
He spent his life trying to cope with her outrages which often escalated him into defensive anger which didn’t happen anywhere but in this relationship.
Case #3- Betty, a 42 year separated mother struggled with her soon to be ex-husband's contempt and disrespect every time she angrily called him to discuss details of their divorce.
These three cases bring up the question often asked by participants in our anger management classes: Is it possible to control how family members treat us? The short answer is “no” — but often we can teach them to treat us better!
Believe it or not, we are constantly teaching our family how to treat us— both by our responses to their behavior, and by the behavior we display to them which they react to. In our case examples:
- By automatically doing whatever her husband and children requested, Elizabeth was “teaching” them that there are almost no limits to what she would do for them.
- With his behavior, Bill was actually teaching his wife that the way to get attention from him (even if it was negative attention) was for her to create drama.
- Betty was so intimidated by her husband, that her defensive “attitude” was “teaching” him that to deal with her, he had to push back with the contempt and disrespect that he constantly showed her.
The dance of anger
Our interchange with family members is often like a carefully choreographed dance. They make a move. You make a move in response to their move. They then respond to what you said or did and …well, you get the idea!
How do you change the dance? Start by seeing yourself as a teacher—of how you would like your family to treat you.
Four ways to change what you teach others
1. Try a softer start-up. Marital research shows that the first few seconds of an interaction can predict the final outcome of the encounter. Try being
softer, more polite, more respectful, less hostile, or more empathetic—and see how this change in your approach actually teaches others to respond better to you.
2. Take a time-out before dealing with the conflict or situation. Conflicting or arguing family members often work themselves up to a point at which problem solving is impossible.
The solution is to retreat and give yourself time to calm down and think things over. This takes at least 20 minutes, often much longer. Before taking your time out, it is important to tell the other person that you will commit to returning soon to deal with the conflict, after you are calmer—then be sure to do it!
3. Acknowledge that you see how they must be seeing the situation. Called “empathy,” this response on your part teaches others that you care about their feelings and viewpoints, and opinions.
Acknowledgement doesn’t mean that you necessarily agree with their viewpoint —only that you see it. Sometimes, your family needs to know that you care about them and respect their opinions before they listen to what you say.
4. Set limits and boundaries for your family members. Limits and boundaries are basically rules regarding acceptable behaviors toward you as well as what you are willing or not willing to do.
If you feel others are taking advantage of you, ask yourself what you may be doing ( or not doing )to give the message it is “ok” for them to do whatever they are doing. Often you can change their behavior toward you by teaching them different rules of being with you. The easiest way to do this is simply to respond differently yourself. For instance, they make you the core of a nasty joke. Being a nice person, you pretend it doesn’t bother you (even though it does), so you laugh with everybody else. As an alternative, try not laughing with them, which is a way of teaching them that they have crossed a boundary with you.
2005 © Dr. Tony Fiore All rights reserved.
Dr. Tony Fiore (www.angercoach.com) is a So. California licensed psychologist, and anger management trainer. His company, The Anger Coach, provides anger and stress management programs, training and products to individuals, couples, and the workplace. Sign up for his free monthly newsletter "Taming The Anger Bee" at www.angercoach.com
|
|
|
|
|
| Stress Management Tips and Techniques from Mind Tools |
| More than 100 stress management tips and techniques, helping you manage the job-related stress in your life. |
| www.mindtools.com |
|
| Stress Management Techniques, Stress Relief & Stress Reduction ... |
| Mind Tools helps you manage the causes of stress and teaches useful stress management techniques. |
| www.mindtools.com |
|
| Stress Management |
| Stress Management. What is Stress? Stress is the "wear and tear" our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment; it has physical ... |
| www.ivf.com |
|
| Stress Management: Information and Resources on Stress From About.com |
| Find a wide variety of stress management strategies you can use in your daily life. Learn about the causes and effects of stress, healthy and effective ... |
| stress.about.com |
|
| Stress Management |
| Links to stress management information on the web. |
| www.pp.okstate.edu |
|
| Links to Stress Related Resources |
| Return to the Stress Management and Emotional Wellness Page ... Cognitive Restructuring Approaches to Stress Management ... |
| www.imt.net |
|
| International Stress Management Association(UK) |
| The leading professional body for stress management. The ISMA website has articles from their journal Stress News, links and general advice on lifestyle and ... |
| www.isma.org.uk |
|
| Stress Management for Patient and Physician |
| Stress management for patient and physician. Stress is the most common cause of ill health, probably underlying as many as 70% of all visits to family ... |
| www.mentalhealth.com |
|
| Stress Management: Counseling Services, University at Buffalo |
| The description on stress management. ... Stress Management. Introduction Stress is a part of day to day living. As college students you may experience ... |
| ub-counseling.buffalo.edu |
|
| Stress Management and Anxiety Relief |
| Welcome to stressmanagement.co.uk - We specialise in managing your stress. |
| www.stressmanagement.co.uk |
|
| Stress Management for effective ways to manage stress |
| Our stress management services allows you to find the solutions to all types of stress. We also have professional stress management counsellors available 7 ... |
| www.stressmanagement.com.au |
|
| Stress Management--UIUC Counseling Center |
| Self-help Brochures. What is Stress? Stress is the "wear and tear" our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment; ... |
| www.couns.uiuc.edu |
|
| The Stress Management Society |
| Congratulations to taking the first step to freedom from the stress trap. This is the place to learn more about stress and its management. |
| www.stress.org.uk |
|
| Stress management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Stress management encompasses techniques intended to equip a person with effective ... Definition of stress: Stress management defines stress precisely as a ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Stress |
| Stress Management. Everyone experiences stress from time to time, so it is perfectly normal ... Fortunately, stress management is largely a learnable skill. ... |
| www.cyberpsych.com |
|
| SBC Academic Resource Center | Stress Management |
| With stress management training, you can learn to avoid procrastination and other stress-producing situations. Stress Quiz: How Stressed Are You? ... |
| www.arc.sbc.edu |
|
| Mind Tools - How to Master Stress |
| 3. Stress Management Techniques. Raising Stress Levels - Psyching Up · Stress Reduction Techniques · Reducing Short-Term Stress - Mental Techniques ... |
| www.psywww.com |
|
| Stress, stress management, occupational stress, stress prevention ... |
| A recent survey showed that 70-90% of us feel stressed at work and outside. Unless we learn to manage stress, we will get sick. |
| www.holisticonline.com |
|
| HSE - Stress Management Standards Homepage |
| The International Stress Management Association has produced a leaflet showing how employees can work with their employers to tackle work-related stress ... |
| www.hse.gov.uk |
|
| Stress Management Tips for Stressed and Overworked People. |
| Free weekly stress management tips and relaxation CD plus practical resources for stressed people. |
| www.stresstips.com |
|
|