On Anger Management

Since childhood I’ve suffered from sudden flashes of anger and aggression, and in those moments my behavior would turn wildly out of proportion to the situation. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to get a handle on it — hunting for techniques and practices that might keep my inner demons on a leash.

Recently I came across a new technique from Dr. Peter Attia, shared in an interview with the neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.

Our anger at the people around us, it turns out, starts as anger at ourselves. Where does it come from? Often its roots run down into our own perfectionism and the impossible demands we make of ourselves. We start to seethe and scold ourselves over the smallest imperfection, over any gap between reality and the bars we’ve set far too high. And when that inner aggression breaks loose — set off by even the most trivial irritant — our reaction can land way out of scale.

So what can we do? Try to “catch” that moment and overhear our own inner dialogue, the instant we start blaming and criticizing ourselves for the tiniest mistake or shortfall from the ideal. The moment that monologue begins, try to swap it out: instead of speaking to ourselves, imagine we’re talking to someone close — a best friend, say. Better still — record an audio note of exactly what we’d say to them in this situation.

So a line like “You’re a loser, because you didn’t get everything done today” suddenly turns into “You did great! Look how much you got through! Sure, a few things on the list are still open, but you weren’t goofing off — you just honestly ran out of time, and you’ll get to them tomorrow. Don’t blame yourself, don’t beat yourself up.” You can even send these recordings to a therapist, or just to someone you trust, to feel a little more accountable for your own words. We automatically become more objective and gentler in how we phrase things the moment we know someone else will be listening.

Why are we so harsh and cruel to ourselves, when we can be so compassionate and supportive toward the people close to us?

Peter Attia says that in just four months of this practice he managed to all but get rid of the rage he’d been fighting desperately for decades — through boxing to discharge the negative emotion, and a host of other methods.

Here’s to supporting ourselves the way we’d support our own best friend! 😎