Hasmukh Adhia: Anger management the yogic way

Everyone has a problem of not being able to control anger. Some people admit it while others don't even realise that. Anger brings about more negative results than positive.

Showing someone that you are angry may help you extract short term advantage but in the long run one will experience negative impact of anger in one's life. Anger exhumes a person, makes outflow of prana irregular and disturbs normal functioning of the auto-neuron system of our body. Angry person develops a bitter personality over a period. Hence we need to watch out.

Anger is an outward manifestation of stress. Stress is of two types-external and internal. External stress may be caused by some events in our life such as sickness, death in the family or economic poverty. But the major cause for anger is the internal stress. Internal stress arises mainly out of frustration of desires.

This is the truth given in Bhagwat Gita. Anger comes because of not being able to fulfil heart's desires, or inability to cope up with multifarious interactions with the people around, or simply out of feeling of neglect or lack of self-esteem.

We have incessant list of desires and 'things to do' in our life. On top of all these desires is the desire to remain in as many social circles as possible. We create maze of relationships around us and become so busy in maintaining expectations of people around. We take on more responsibilities in work or business than what we can chew. This inevitably results in throwing your life out of gear. When we lose control we tend to be angry.

So, here are some golden principles of anger management. First of all, keep a check on your 'wish list'. Be more pragmatic about what is doable and not doable. There are temptations all around, but a wise person will not be swayed by it. Desires, not supported by means, are bound to disappoint you. And when that happens, anger is the outcome.

Secondly, we need to reduce our expectations from people. We want the whole world to behave in the same way as we do. Worse still, we expect everyone else to be as sincere, as punctual and as tidy as we are.

Sometimes the expectation is there when we ourselves are not so. If people around us don't fulfil this expectation, we become angry. Problem is that in spite of the experience teaching us that shouting at people doesn't ever change them; we still continue doing so foolishly. Can we have better discrimination in this?

Thirdly, we need to tackle our big ego. Ego is a product of lack of self-esteem. If someone says 'you are so bad', your ego will be hurt only if you have low self-esteem. Do we need to bother about so many opinions of others? There are techniques available to enhance one's self esteem. But just brood over the mechanism of how our ego is hurt.

The above points are curative in the long run. But what to do in short run? When you know you are angry and about to lose your temper, be aware of it. Stop and wait for a while before you burst out. Try to isolate yourself from the situation and go into another room if possible.

Sit down and do some anulom-vilom pranayam. Try chandra anulom-vilom in which you can close the right nostril and breathe only through the left nostril- deep inhalation and deep exhalation. Once you calm down, analyse the reason for your anger and try to cure the cause.