Necessity – The Mother of Invention

By Bob Proctor

From childhood ice cream has been my favorite dessert. Coming from a large family and raised during the Depression, we had an occasional "churn" of ice cream on Sunday afternoon. We didn't get much at a serving, so that made it particularly enjoyable. Over the years my passion for ice cream did nothing but grow and at one time I could quickly rattle off the four best ice creams available in America and, interestingly enough, the best flavors came from four different companies. To this day I find it difficult to pass the ice cream store without a quick stop for at least a single, if not a double-dip. Unfortunately, my body retains ice cream, so I seriously limit my intake today.

This leads me to a fascinating little story on ice cream and the ice cream sundae. A merchant from Wisconsin named Smithson, out of necessity, invented the ice cream sundae in 1890. They did not deliver on Sunday in those days, so to avoid running short he reduced the amount of ice cream with each order and added chocolate syrup or some special fruit topping to the mixture. The mixture was so well-received that he was asked by his customers to serve it on the other days of the week as well. He wanted to meet his customers' needs and desires, but some people objected to the use of the word "Sunday" because it was the Lord's Day. They felt that to call an ice cream dish after the Lord's Day was profane. That's when he modified the spelling to "sundae." Today the ice cream sundae is still a favorite among millions of people.

Just think - we never would have had the sundae had there not been a shortage of ice cream. The next time you run short of something, think of how you can stretch it out. Who knows? Maybe it will be a bonanza like the sundae. Give it a try, and I'll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

SOURCE

13:05:00 - By Vincent 0

Public speaking tips for kids

At a glance

• Public speaking helps kids to develop confidence and build up their self-esteem.
• Create opportunities for your child to present speeches to the family.
• Show them how to use palm cards.
• Good speakers make eye contact with the audience.
• Help them develop a good pace and correct volume for the room.
• Spend time listening to your child's speeches.

Kids need to develop their skills for speaking in front of others long before their 21^st birthday.

Merrilyn Jenkins, principal of Penshurst West Public School, says confidence in public speaking is a valuable tool for children to have.

"A clear confident speaking voice is an essential life skill that fosters self-esteem and personal confidence," she says.

"Children need lots of opportunities to prepare and present speeches as well as to listen to and watch others speak."

If your tips for keeping nerves at bay during public speaking are limited to imagining your audience in their underwear, Merrilyn has some sound advice to help your child prepare for their big moment in the spotlight.

A clear confident speaking voice is an essential life skill that fosters self-esteem and personal confidence. Merrilyn Jenkins

Public speaking tips

• When your child can choose their own topic, encourage them to pick topics that are of personal interest.
• It's OK for younger kids to give a recount of a holiday or special event, but as they get older help them develop opinions. For example, a speech on snakes may not be just facts and figures but could include comment about their importance to the environment or why people are afraid of them.
• Help your child develop interesting beginnings and endings to their speeches, but always in a way that is meaningful to them.
• Guide them to use a variety of information sources including family discussions, the library or the internet.
• Use palm cards. Cut pieces of paper small enough to fit into the palm of one hand.Young kids may have picture clues to help them remember each part of their speech. Older kids should plan their speech out on sheets of paper first, then pick out the main points and write keywords for those points on the card
  
• The idea is not to read sentences but to use the cards just to jog their memory. For example: "First fleet. 1788. Mainly convicts - England. Industrial revolution, overcrowding gaols," might be an introductory card for a speech on Convicts in Australia.
• Even professional speakers rely on lots of preparation and practise to give smooth-flowing speeches.
• Suggest to your child to practise their speech in front of a mirror or video so they can watch it and evaluate their own efforts.
• While practising for a speech, remind your child to:

          say the ends of words clearly

speak loudly enough for the people at the back of the room to hear

          vary their pitch and pace when it makes sense to do so

          look at the audience.

• Spend time listening to your child's speech. Try to avoid doing other things at the same time because they need to practise looking at faces when they talk. Give feedback on how they present and time them with a stopwatch so they can pace their speech to meet the time they have been given.

Finally, avoid putting too much pressure on a child to perform.

"They need to be encouraged to participate at their own level and build their skills as they gain more experience," Merrilyn says.

"A relaxed, well-prepared speaker will exude confidence and therefore will always be a winner."

SOURCE

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

5 Lessons Standup Comedians Can Teach You About Public Speaking

 by Steven Handel

If you want to improve your public speaking, there is no better place to look than the world of standup comedy.

A good comedian is a master of public speaking. Not only do they have to be confident and comfortable on stage, but they are expected to be humorous and entertaining as well. As Jerry Seinfeld once said, “No one is more judged in civilized society than a standup comedian. Every 12 seconds you’re rated.”

Standup comedy is one of the most difficult professions to be successful at. They have to face tremendous amounts of failure and embarrassment before they can get to where they are. And there is nothing more humiliating than “bombing” in front of an audience, where every joke lands flat and everyone is left staring at you blankly as you try to squeeze out a few laughs.

In the new book Do You Talk Funny? 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker, David Nihill enters the world of standup comedy and discovers key lessons that anyone can use to improve their public speaking.

Whether you’re giving a public presentation to a business, school, or government organization, there is a lot you can learn from standup comedy. And learning these skills can really take your speaking ability to the next level.

Unlike a comedian, most public speakers aren’t expected to be very funny or entertaining. But even adding just a little bit of humor to your presentation will make you stand out from the crowd and become more memorable.

Here are a few key lessons we can learn from standup comedians on how to improve our public speaking abilities.

Master the art of story-telling

People rarely remember information unless it is presented in the form of a story.

You can list all of the facts, statistics, and bits of wisdom you’d like, but it’s probably going to go in one ear and out the other. People crave narratives to make sense of their world. We don’t just want information given to us in clear bullet-points, we want that information to convey a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

While there are comedians who specialize in one-liners and witticisms (Bo Burnham, Anthony Jeselnik), often the best comedians are story-tellers (Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Doug Stanhope). They begin their jokes by describing a situation. Then they reveal a conflict with the protagonist (often themselves). And they end by presenting a resolution or final twist.

Story-telling is important in any domain where you want to grab an audience’s attention. A teacher may have a bunch of facts that they want their students to remember, but by adding a story to their presentation they can make their material much more sticky and memorable (see How to Plant Powerful Ideas in People’s Minds That Actually Take Root for more on this).

While you may not think of yourself as a natural story-teller, this is something that can definitely be learned with practice. David Nihill gives great tips in his book on how he became a better story-teller, and I’ll be sharing some of those with you right now.

Draw from your own personal experiences

When trying to create a story, you don’t need to start from scratch or recreate an entire universe. Start with what you know best – your own personal experiences.

Most of our memories are already structured in the form of a narrative. There’s a setting, a protagonist (you!), a conflict, and an ending.

One great piece of advice is to start a document on your computer and make a list of memorable stories. These could be centered around a specific presentation you want to give (stories of breakups or stories of failing at a goal), or just stories you think will be interesting or entertaining to share with your audience.

Start by making a list with the general idea behind each story (“That one time a girl threw her drink at me”). Then you can go back to this list and elaborate more on each memory when you have the time (“I was at college at this local bar…all my friends had hooked up with a girl and I was the odd man out…I saw this gorgeous girl dancing and decided to approach her…”).

Having a “story collection” can be very helpful if you are a public speaker. If you don’t already have one, you should start one now. You might have a lot of awesome stories that you don’t know how to integrate into your presentation, but by starting your collection now you will have a wealth of stories on the back-burner, ready for use when you need them.

The best part about focusing on your own personal experiences is that you know your stories will be unique. Also, no one will know your stories better than you so they are typically way easier to remember and share than if you were to try and create an entertaining story out of thin air.

It’s often said that to be a great story-teller, you need to have lived a little. If you’re having trouble thinking of any interesting memories from your past, it may be time to do some adventure-seeking and start creating new stories in your life.

Try new things, go to new places, and meet new people – often the stories will start writing themselves. These are great ways to start building a better “story collection” in your life.

In Do You Talk Funny? 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker, David Nihill enters the comedy world for a whole year to help overcome his fear of public speaking. The book shares his experiences as “Irish Dave” and the various lessons he picked up from standup comedians. Each chapter includes practical advice and exercises to help you improve your own skills in communication, presentation, and public speaking.

Test your material with friends and family

Every comedian knows that their jokes are rarely “finished” when they are telling them for the first time.

Instead, like most polished stories, it often requires a few new drafts and editing before we settle on the best way to share our material.

This is why comedians like Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld, and Aziz Ansari spend a lot of time sharing their new material in small clubs or at open mic nights before they present the material to a larger audience.

Sometimes they will enter a small club with just a vague idea of what they want to talk about. And once they begin “riffing” (or improvising) on that topic, they begin to find what lines get laughs and what lines they are better off getting rid of.

We can practice our own material in a similar way – even if it’s just sharing a story with friends or family. By testing your material in front of a small audience, you’ll soon discover what parts of your story connect with your audience and what parts don’t seem to work.

Like all experiments, this is going to require you becoming more comfortable with failure. You might think you have a great story on your mind, but you end up delivering it in a bad way and no one seems to care. That’s okay! Just try to take what you learned and use that to improve your story the next time you’re telling it.

Over time your stories will become more polished and refined. Eventually you reach a point where you become more comfortable telling the story because you know exactly what lines are going to kill it with your audience.

For extra credit, try filming your presentations whenever possible. This makes it much easier to reevaluate your material when you’re finished and pick apart what works and what doesn’t work.

Practice your material in small and safe ways and try to encourage honest feedback when you can. You’ll soon be ready to take your material to the big stage!

Pay attention to your delivery

You can hear the same exact joke told by two different people and have a completely different reaction to it.

Why? Because delivery matters. If someone says all the right words but doesn’t say it with the right tone or the right timing, a good joke can often turn into a bad joke.

Norm MacDonald is a master at this. Often his jokes are completely dry and sometimes even described as “anti-jokes” because they rarely follow a typical joke format. But the way he delivers his material is something that is solely unique to him and he makes it work for his personality (check out a video of his moth joke if you want to get a feel for his style of comedy).

The proper delivery is going to depend on how you present yourself, your material, and your individual personality, but it’s important to remember that your delivery will make a big difference in how well your material comes off to others.

With practice, you’ll discover the best way to deliver your stories. For example, once you know that a particular line is a strong one, you can heighten that line by taking an extra pause before you deliver it (to add suspense and tension before the final release).

You never want to take the punchlines of your story and breeze through them as if they are just another detail. By emphasizing those lines, you not only make them stronger but you also give a cue to your audience that this is the line where you expect a reaction. And they will be more likely to respond to it.

Of course it’s often difficult to monitor your delivery while you’re performing. This again is why it’s important to encourage feedback from others or to record your presentation so you can pay more attention to these subtle details later on.

Start strong and finish even stronger

Now that you have a bunch of good material to share, the next big question is how to organize it.

While Do You Talk Funny? has countless tips and advice on how to fine-tune your public speaking, one of the key pieces I want to focus on is to “start strong and finish even stronger.”

Psychology research shows that people are often programmed to remember the beginning and end of their experiences. The middle parts often become more of a blur.

For example, when psychologists ask individuals to remember a long list of words, they discover that participants are most likely to remember the words at the beginning and end of the list vs. words listed in the middle.

This is just one example of how our memories are biased toward the beginning and end of an experience.

With this in mind, a good public speaker wants to start their presentation strong to make a positive first impression and grip their audience’s attention. But they also want to end their presentation even stronger to leave a lasting impact and give their audience a positive note to remember them afterwards.

In the case of a comedian, David Nihill recommends that you use your second best joke at the very beginning and your best joke at the very end. By structuring your material this way, you are more likely to leave a stronger impression.

Once you’ve created your material and tested it, you should have a good idea of what are the strongest parts of your presentation, and that’ll give you a better idea of the order you should structure it.

Conclusion

I have a lot of respect for standup comedians – it’s something I would love to dabble in to improve my own communication and presentation skills.

When I came across the book Do You Talk Funny? 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker, I knew it would be right up my alley and I had to check it out. David Nihill does a really great job taking lessons from the world of standup comedy and showing you how to apply them to any type of public speaking. I highly recommend it!

SOURCE

22:00:00 - By Vincent 0

Here is a good video on how to approach conversation with a stranger. Some good solid advice. Very useful.

13:30:00 - By Vincent 0

Presentation tip to make you a star

Presentation? Do This

Tell the people in the room what you expect from them.

There are at least 3 common reasons why you give a presentation:

1. To educate in order for people to make a decision

2. To prompt action or implementation

3. To educate for the sake of knowledge

You need to tell them at the beginning what you're doing and what they have to do. Without giving them a "mental assignment," people don't have a context in which to process the information. If they don't know what's expected of them, human nature  leads the audience into a passive mode. The burden of the presentation is entirely on you.

Do this:

1. "At the end of the meeting we'll decide on the best supply chain software for our organization. You'll  be expected to offer your rationale for the risks and benefits of each. So I expect that we'll have a lot of questions and discussion during the next hour."

2. "I'm going to lay out the steps of the product launch. Each of you will play a role in its execution. At the end of the meeting I'll ask for a commitment to a timetable from each of the managers here. As I lay out the information, be sure to speak up and discuss the pros and cons from your perspective. The deadline for the launch is 60 days from now."

3. "We've discovered a possible new opportunity as a result of R&D. My purpose is to show you what led to this so that you can understand what is evolving with the technology."

Make your audience mentally active

• Tell them at the beginning what their role is and how to play it. 

• They'll appreciate the direction.

• You'll get more participation.

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

Concluding Your Presentation: End With A Bang, Not With A Whimper.

BY Pivotal Public Speaking

Your conclusion should do much more than simply tell your listeners that your presentation is over. Your entire presentation, in fact, can hinge on the final impression you make. It's that last impression that can linger the longest. So preparing a strong ending to your presentation is every bit as important as preparing a strong opening.

A strong opener grabs your audience's attention and leads them to your key messages; a strong close takes them back to your key messages and brings your presentation full circle to your ultimate objective.

Plan your conclusion.
Your conclusion is a critical part of your presentation. It's where your entire presentation is heading. It should bring your presentation full circle to the objective you've been building towards. It should reinforce your key messages. It should sound like a conclusion, leaving no doubt that itis a conclusion. It should add to the positive impression that hopefully you will have created with your audience.


Conclusions should be short.
Don't ramble. An ending that drags on can actually undo much of the positive impact of an otherwise good presentation. Once you announce you're about to wind up, don't go on talking ... and talking.

"you should be clear about what you want your listeners to feel, think, anddo at the conclusion of your presentation."

If it's a call to action, make it crystal clear.
If you're concluding a presentation designed to persuade your audience, your conclusion should have two key elements: a final call to action based on the argument you've just made, and a reason to act.

Your call to action should be clear and specific. Your audience should be left with no doubt about what it is you're asking.

At the same time, you should be clear about what you want your listeners to feel, think, and do at the conclusion of your presentation. The reason to act should be framed in terms of what matters to them. So avoid phrases like "I want you to ..." Instead, for example, if your listeners have been looking for ways to increase their work productivity, make it clear to them that your call to action represents an effective way to achieve their goal. Show them how your call to action serves their interests.

Stay on message.
Be careful not to tuck into your conclusion new ideas or messages that you did not include in your presentation. That runs the risk of confusing your audience and obscuring your original messages.

Obvious as it may seem, be absolutely certain that your conclusion extends logically from everything preceding it. You clearly don't want to offer a conclusion that's disconnected from the body of your presentation. At the same time, don't leave out references to a major point you may have made much of in your presentation.

Make your last impression a lasting one.
People tend to recall best what they hear last. So prepare and rehearse your conclusion with special care. Consider how you can make your conclusion memorable both in substance and delivery.

Use some of the techniques from the successful presenter's toolbox. Consider, for example, combining intonation, pauses-and especially, to-the-point phrases that are likely to stay with your audience. Jack Welch, in his early days as CEO of General Electric, faced head-on the need for radical changes in the company's business direction. He would often end meetings with a simple call to the company's employees: "Change ... before you have to." The message behind that sound bite was unmistakable, and eventually resonated throughout the company. It was perhaps the best and most successful summation of Welch's business philosophy.

Speak or read?
It's usually better to speak your conclusion without reading it. If you're more comfortable using notes, put them in bullet form, listing the main ideas and messages you want to reiterate and reinforce from your presentation. Keeping your eyes focused on your audience instead of your notes is always helpful, the more so when your conclusion is a call to action.

When your presentation is followed by Q-&-A's.
If a Q-&-A session follows your presentation, don't stop talking when the questions are done. Have a strong finishing flourish ready as your final statement. Your best summation, however brief, should be the last thing your listeners hear. You can repeat your closing statement or re-phrase it, underscoring your key message one final time.

SOURCE

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

30 signs YOUR relationship has hit the comfort zone (and will go the distance)

By BIANCA 

Squeezing each other's spots, leaving the toilet door open and talking while naked: 30 signs YOUR relationship has hit the comfort zone (and will go the distance)

• 
  
• Relationships hit the comfort phase after exactly 11 months and 24 days
• Having the confidence to tell a partner their breath smells shows potential
• Doing their laundry and wearing 'ugly' underwear is a sign of a good bond 

Do you go au natural around your partner, chat to them while naked and do their laundry? You've officially hit the comfort zone.

New research reveals that relationships hit the comfort phase after exactly 11 months and 24 days - when you're happy to squeeze each other's spots, leave the toilet door open and tell all about ex-partners.

talking while naked

The research analysed 2,000 couples and found it takes almost a year to get used to sharing your life and living space with a significant other.

And the key signs you've entered the comfort zone include allowing your other half to see you when ill, without make-up on and in your lounging clothes.

Using the toilet without locking the door, feeling free to cry in front of your partner and letting them look after you when poorly are other sure signs of being in a comfortable relationship.

The poll also found having the confidence to tell a partner if their breath is a little smelly or if they need a squirt of deodorant without them taking offence is a strong sign that a relationship has serious potential.

It may seem gross to some, but squeezing each other's spots or plucking stray hairs is another sign a relationship is definitely comfortable. And the cliche of finishing each other's sentences still rings true - appearing inside the top 30 signs of a comfortable partnership.

Using the toilet without locking the doo

Using the toilet without locking the door, feeling free to cry in front of your partner and letting them look after you when poorly are other sure signs of being in a comfortable relationship

Body confidence was a continuous theme, with being more relaxed about shaving, physical appearance overall and wearing swimwear in front of your partner all being cited as good markers for a relationship lasting the pace.

It's not always smooth sailing though - a third have been in a relationship where their partner got too comfortable too quickly and the illusion of a perfect relationship is most commonly broken when the man breaks wind in front of his partner.

Nearly a fifth said a new partner had overstepped the mark by getting in touch with their family members too early, or asking about ex-partners. 

Having the confidence to tell a partner if their breath is a little smelly

Having the confidence to tell a partner if their breath is a little smelly or if they need a squirt of deodorant without them taking offence is another tell-tale sign of a strong relationship

A spokesperson for Measure digital bowel health test, who commissioned the research, said: 'It's interesting to see that it takes nearly a year for people to feel they can really be comfortable around each other.

'At first we're very conscious and don't want to be seen as anything but our best, but gradually over time we let people in more and more as our trust and confidence builds.

'Some might say the signs you've reached that place in a relationship can signal an end to the romance, but it's a good sign that you're comfortable in your partner's presence and can share any topic or worry with them without fear of being judged.'

Letting them have house keys

THE TOP 30 SIGNS OF A RELATIONSHIP COMFORT ZONE 

1. Not wearing make-up

2. Not locking the bathroom door

Giving        3. Wearing pyjamas/lounge wear

4. Breaking wind in front of them

5. Not shaving your legs/face

6. Wearing your less attractive/non-matching underwear

7. Doing his/her laundry

8. Going to the toilet with the door open

9. Confiding in them over health concerns

10. Letting them look after you when you're ill

11. You don't mind crying in front of them

12. Taking calls/visits from their family

13. 'Letting yourself go' without worrying about it

14. Laughing when they take the mickey out of you

15. Letting them have house keys

16. Happy to have a conversation while naked

17. Knowing their views on marriage and kids

18. Telling them when they need a mint/deodorant

19. Shaving in front of them

20. Asking them to squeeze a spot/pluck a hair

21. Not fretting at the prospect of being in swimwear in front of them

22. Showering together

23. Going clothes shopping together

24. Making their lunch to take to work

25. Answering their phone

26. Leaving clothes at each other's houses

27. Telling them your hang-ups

28. Finishing each other's sentences

29. Calling them by a pet name

30. Talking about/knowing about ex-partners

  SOURCE

12:00:00 - By Vincent 0

A 7-Step Program for Managing Your Social Anxiety

by YUMI SAKUGAWA

Do you experience a pang of envy when you scroll through your Facebook news feed, Instagram home, or Twitter timeline and see all your friends doing super-awesome things that you weren't a part of? If you are like most people, then the answer is probably yes.

This particular strain of social media envy is now commonly referred to as FOMO, which stands for "Fear Of Missing Out." It can come in the form of feeling jealous over friends' vacation photos, the self-inflicted pressure to check out a hip restaurant that everyone else is talking about, or simply experiencing the general paranoia that everybody else online is having more fun without you.

Common as it is, FOMO can be managed and cured with gratitude, mindful breathing exercises, and most importantly, cutting back on your online browsing time. The end result could even eventually turn your FOMO into JOMO, i.e. "Joy of Missing Out."

SOURCE

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

5 Golden Tips On How To Deal With Anger

By Harleena Singh 

Anger is not bad, but it’s the way we deal with it that really matters. While we all know how to get angry, we should also know how to deal with anger to avoid troubles in life.

One of the earlier posts on this blog tells you about the reasons why you get angry, while there’s another one with an interesting story on what harm can anger do to you and your life.

Now, even after being aware of all these facts, most of you still get angry – don’t you?

Well, don’t worry, because as I stated earlier, getting angry is not that much of a problem if you know the right ways to deal with it.

It happens with everybody, including myself – that sometimes you just can’t help but get angry. And that’s okay, though it’s better if you can avoid doing so or get angry within limits.

However, something that you should certainly do is to help yourself on learning how to control your anger.

Anger is an emotion, and as with any other emotion, it’s alright to go through it in constructive ways.

Whenever you feel the anger, know that you can release or deal with it in various positive ways.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~ Gautama Buddha

Tips on How to Deal with Anger

There are many tips and techniques for controlling anger. Nevertheless, here are some of the ways that I use to control anger and find them quite effective.

Basically, you need to try and achieve these objectives whenever you get angry:

• Gain time so that you don’t react instantly
• Control the thoughts in your mind and changes in your body due to anger
• Release your anger in ways that are not harmful

Do you also use any of these anger management techniques? If not, then probably you can learn and practice them in your life.

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” ~ Thomas Paine

1. Remove Yourself

Pull yourself away from the person or situation that angers you.

If someone or something makes you angry – you need to try to remove yourself temporarily from that situation or go away from that person.

If not that, then try ways so that the other person goes away and you can have time to deal with your anger.

Yes, take a timeout because that will reduce the chances of you giving back an instant reaction, which is often uncontrolled, unreasonable, and hurtful.

It’s not running away – but being wise, because it’s unlikely that you’ll deal with the person or situation in the best manner when you’re angry.

You can even sleep and later talk about what angered you when you wake up with a refreshed mind.

Anger Management Tip: Take a walk in the garden or listen to soothing music to distract your attention. By doing this or picking up any hobby you like, you can shift the focus on other things to let the “anger triggering” situation pass by.

“When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

2. Breathe Fully

It’s not always possible for you to physically get away from the person or situation that angers you. In such a case, you can exercise controlled and deep breathing.

The trick is not to get involved in the anger trigger moment, and just breathe deep. It helps – try it out! 

Your breathing fastens with the rise in your blood pressure as you get angry, and one way of dealing with anger is to control your breathing.

Practice diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing to inhale and exhale air using the diaphragm and abdomen so that you breathe fully and slowly.

This helps you maintain your cool and your blood pressure, besides reducing stress and increasing stamina.

Another trick is to slowly count up to 10 and synchronize your breathing with it, and keep doing so until you feel that your breathing is normal or stabilized.

Anger Management Tip: Breathe consciously by paying attention on each aspect of breathing, right from the time you inhale to exhale. This practice is a part of mindful meditation, which helps to control your mind and not let it get involved in the commotion.

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” ~ Bible

3. Exercise Physically

When you’re angry, you’re full of negative energy. If you cannot control and eliminate this feeling with understanding, you need to release it in a healthy way that doesn’t harm others.

One of the easiest ways to deal with anger is to engage yourself in physical activities. These include sweating out activities like walking, skipping, jogging, running, swimming, playing some sport, and even gyming!

Exercising reduces your stress hormones and pumps the feel good Neuro-chemicals in your brain, which calms you down and elevates your mood.

Aerobic exercises and yoga can also help you lessen your anger and stress levels.

Anger is related to stress and anxiety, so you can use stress balls or a boxing bag to punch out your negative emotions if you feel that your anger is on the verge of eruption.

Anger Management Tip: If you can’t exercise, then try progressive muscle relaxation while sitting or standing by contracting and relaxing the muscles of the body from neck to toes. This helps reduce the stress in the body, and ultimately lessens your anger.

“When anger rises, think of the consequences.” ~ Confucius

4. Think Rationally

You should think of the consequences when you get angry. What would be the end-result of your act of anger? Is it really worth the damage it will cause?

You can’t always act on the spur of the moment.

You’ve to be responsible and think about how or what you say or do, as that will affect you or the other person. Things like health, relationships, business, career and family need to be considered.

Try to be logical and analyze the root cause of the problem that led to the anger instead of flowing away in the stream of negative emotions.

Accept your angry feelings and adapt, adjust, compromise, negotiate, and talk about the trigger situations and its causes.

Resolve the problem amicably and intelligently, and let your head overrule your heart while dealing with anger.

Anger Management Tip: Use “I” statements in place of “You”, which place the blame on the person at the receiving end. Be calm and express your anger in decent words. Use non-confrontational language to clarify the facts with an intention to solve the problem.

“Whenever anger comes up, take out a mirror and look at yourself. When you are angry, you are not very beautiful.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

5. Express Creatively

You can release your negative feeling through many creative ways.

You could deal with anger by writing or express your feelings – either on paper, or if you have a blog, even through blogging.

Maintaining a daily journal is a healthy way of keeping anger and stress at bay, and not letting them affect you.

You could even use dance and music as a form of catharsis. You can diffuse and make the situation lighter by using your sense of humor, but never use sarcasm as it can make matters worse.

Talk about your feelings of anger with your best friend or family member. Getting to know different perspective might help change your mind and mood.

If you feel like your anger is about to erupt, then take a newspaper and tear it into pieces, or if you’re alone – just scream and let off the steam! You’ll feel light and easy. 

Anger Management Tip: Practice visualization from wherever you are by closing your eyes and imagining yourself in a place where you feel happy and peaceful. Force a smile on your face and you’ll feel calm and relaxed.

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your cool to confront anger

Remember that nothing good comes out of anger, and it only makes things worse.

Always be assertive and look out for possible solutions instead of being aggressive and finding reasons for confrontation.

But if you’re angry, then don’t drink it down – don’t suppress it forcibly because there might be chances of it erupting later like a volcano.

The best way to eliminate and deal with anger is to apologize, forgive and let go, and engage yourself in positive self-talk.

Don’t hold any grudges, instead try to be understanding. You should try to emphasize by getting into the other person’s mind and understand their perspective to assess the reasons for the anger.

Once the tension in the environment has calmed down, then sit and talk out matters. Always think before you speak because words once spoken cannot be taken back.

But remember to not talk about your anger when you’re rushed, tired, or before your sleep time.

However, if you fail to control your anger using all the tricks in the bag, then you should see a mental health professional or a therapist for more guidelines.

Don’t suffer from anger. Instead, be smart and learn how to deal with it in the right way.

Here’s a short video that will show you how to control your anger in your daily life.

How to Control Your Anger ~ Howcast ~ YouTube Video

Did you notice that “Anger” is just one alphabet short of “Danger” (D-anger)? So, I hope now that you know how to control your anger, you’ll keep yourself out of danger. 

“He who angers you conquers you.” ~ Elizabeth Kenny

Over to You –

What do you do when you get angry? Is controlling anger easy for you? Share your tips on how to deal with anger in the comments.

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19:58:00 - By Vincent 0