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Anger is part of life – no less than memory, happiness, and compassion. Anger says more about you – your temperament, how you view the world, how balanced your life is, and how easily you forgive others – than it does about other people. You don’t have to be a victim of your own anger; you can actually choose how you respond when the world doesn’t treat you the way you want it to.

In fact, you have just as much choice about how you express your anger as you do about what color shirt you wear, what you eat for breakfast, or what time you go jogging this afternoon. Although it often feels like you don’t have a choice about feeling angry, you do. You also have a choice about how much of yesterday’s anger you carry into the future and how much anger you’re likely to experience tomorrow.

No one is exempt from problematic anger. Anger is a very democratic emotion; it causes problems for men and women, kids and the elderly, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds, believers and nonbelievers. Tens of millions of human beings needlessly suffer from excessive anger – anger that literally poisons your life – each and every day of their lives.

Anger isn’t something that can or should be cured. But you have to manage it well – at home, at work, and in your most intimate relationships – if you want to benefit from it. Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, tells you how to manage your anger by focusing on the positive, how to get a good night’s sleep, how to change your perspective on life, why carefully controlled expression of anger is better for you than venting, how to transform conflicts into challenges, and much more. Anger management has moved far beyond the simplistic (albeit well-intentioned) advice of years past to count to ten or take a couple of deep breaths every time you get angry, and that’s good news!

About This Book

How do you know when you have too much anger? Do you determine that for yourself, or do you let other people make that call? If you’re not physically aggressive – physically hurting other people or poking holes in walls – does that mean you’re not angry? Does it really help to vent, to get things off your chest, or are you better off keeping your mouth shut to keep the peace? Can angry people really change, or do they have to go through life suffering because that’s just the way they are? And what should you do if you’re on the wrong end of someone else’s anger? These are all important questions that Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, answers for you.

When we wrote this book, we had four basic goals in mind:

✔ We wanted to show you that anger is more than a four-letter word; it’s an extremely complex emotion that has meaning well beyond the crude and hurtful words people use to express it.

✔ We wanted to illustrate all the various ways that anger can, and does, adversely affect your life when it occurs too frequently and is too intense.

✔ We wanted to show you that managing anger is something that is entirely within your power – if you’re willing to make the necessary lifestyle changes outlined in this book, changes in thinking, behaviors, communication, and habits.

✔ We wanted to give you an array of specific skills for managing difficult situations without excessive anger.

You may want to focus on the area in which you’re having the most trouble controlling your temper – at work, for example. Or you may want to head straight for a chapter on jump-starting anger management. We’re not even going to suggest that you read the whole book – that’s up to you. Be like our Golden Doodle and go where your nose (or in this case, your eyes!) lead you. You’ll get where you need to be.

Note: Sidebars in this book contain interesting information, but they aren’t essential reading. If you’re someone who likes to cut to the chase, go ahead and skip the sidebars.

Foolish Assumptions

We made a few assumptions about you when we wrote this book:

✔ You may or may not have a problem with anger, but if you don’t have a problem with anger yourself, you know or love someone who does. If you didn’t buy this book for yourself, you bought it for your husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, father, mother, friend, or coworker. Or one of those people bought it for you.

✔ You don’t want to know everything there is to know about anger; you just want to know what you need to know to manage anger effectively. Scientists have studied anger for years, but you won’t find a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo in these pages. We focus on proven strategies to help you manage your anger, and that’s it.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are those little pictures in the margins throughout this book, and they’re there to draw your attention to certain kinds of information:

This icon alerts you to important ideas and concepts that you’ll want to remember and that you can use even when you don’t have Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, in hand.

Every once in a while, there’s an interesting bit of information that we share with you. You can read these paragraphs if you want, but the information they contain isn’t essential to your understanding of the topic at hand.

The Tip icon suggests practical how-to strategies for managing anger.

This icon appears when we think a cautionary note is in order or when you need to seek professional help.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. No matter how much you gain from what you read, check out the free Cheat Sheet for additional ideas and tools. Go to www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/angermanagement for

✔ Ten ways to cool down

✔ Tips for expressing yourself assertively rather than aggressively

✔ Anger do’s and don’ts

✔ Keeping your cool at work

We also provide six concise online articles associated with Parts II through VII. Those articles give you interesting ideas for how to think about and handle anger. Check them out at www.dummies.com/extras/angermanagement.

Consider printing the Cheat Sheet and other online articles and posting them on your bulletin board, cubical wall, or refrigerator for a quick reference to anger-management strategies.

Where to Go from Here

You don’t have to read this book from start to finish – that is, you don’t have to read the whole book from Chapter 1 through the end to benefit from it. Each part and chapter is meant to stand alone in its discussion of anger management. Feel free to choose a topic that interests you, and dive in.

Whether you read Anger Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition, in its entirety or not, if you still find that you’re struggling with anger, we suggest you seriously consider getting the help of a professional. Anger management is a niche market, and you need to find someone who is both a licensed professional and has credentials (for example, PhD, MD, MSW, MA) and expertise in this area.

Even if you benefit from this book, many people find that anger-management classes help, too. You get the extra benefit of having other people share their stories and hear yours. Class members usually give useful feedback to each other as well.