Chilling out rather than blowing off steam is a better way to manage anger

Activities that keep you fired up don’t help you turn down your anger. Ray Massey/The Image Bank via Getty Images by Sophie L. Kjaervik, Virginia Commonwealth University and Brad Bushman, The Ohio State University Some commonly recommended tactics for managing anger, including hitting a punching bag, jogging and cycling, aren’t effective at helping people cool off. That’s the key takeaway of our new review of 154 studies that looked at how activities that increase versus decrease physiological arousal affect anger and aggression. Arousal is how researchers like us describe how alert and energized someone is. When you’re in a state of high physiological arousal, you’ll have increased heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and skin conductance due to sweat gland activity. Anger is a negative emotion associated with high physiological arousal. In our study, we found that activities that influence arousal levels had a profound impact on anger and aggression. By engaging in activities that decrease arousal, such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, yoga, meditation and mindfulness, you can control, or “turn down,” your angry feelings and aggressive impulses. Crucially, our meta-analysis of participants from multiple studies found that activities that help decrease arousal worked across diverse settings, including in...