5 Steps to Control Your Irritability
- Oct 17, 2017
- 3 min read
As a Clinical Psychologist and Empowerment Coach, I have had the pleasure of providing individual services and facilitating group seminars on Social & Communication Skills and Mood Stability for Children, Adolescents, Adults & Couples/Families. Over the years, the steps below appear to have been more effective with all age groups and situations/problems.
So, let's not wait any longer. Here we go!
What is Irritability: An emotion that typically leads to a response that can cause distractions, outburst or other undesirable behaviors that may impact interpersonal, occupational and/or educational functioning. Examples can be change in mood such as anger, anxiety, frustration and more.
To make things more interesting, let’s start with a situation so you can apply it to the tips.
Situation: John comes home from work at approximately 6pm. Janet, his wife, came home at 4pm from work and has already helped their two younger children complete their homework. Janet request that John assist their teenager daughter with a school project that is due next week so that she can begin to prepare dinner. John states “I had a long day at work. I really just want to sit here for a moment. I can’t help her this weekend?”
1: Identify External Triggers
An External Trigger is anything or anyone outside of you, that results in your change in mood.
External Trigger: John was the external trigger.
2: Identify Internal Triggers
An Internal Trigger is any statement that you tell yourself, like an internal dialogue, that increases the irritability.
Internal Trigger: Janet may have an internal dialogue to herself that may sound like: “I have already helped two of our kids. I had a hard day at work too! Why should he get a chance to chill when I also have to cook and get the kids ready for bed! Ugh!”
3. Identify Physiological Triggers
A Physiological Trigger is when your body informs you that sometimes if wrong, you are not comfortable and/or you are becoming irritable.
Physiological Trigger: Janet recognizes that her heart rate has increased, she crosses her arms across her chest and she feels hot inside.
4. Identify Coping Skills
Coping Skills are tools that help stabilize your thoughts and emotions. We have more coping skills that we think, we just may not utilize them as often as we should or don’t utilize them correctly.
Coping Skill: To calm down, Janet informs John that she needs about 5 mins and walks in the room. When she enters the room she decides to count. Previously, she use to count 1-10 but realized that did not work. This time, she found out that counting 1 to 10 does not require mental effort. Therefore, she has chosen 73 (any number over 60, no even numbers or 5’s). She counts back by 3’s until she can’t anymore while breathings and focuses solely on the number. Now she’s more calm, mind has shifted from her frustration with John to the numbers. She is ready to talk to him now.
5. Engage in Positive Self Talk
Positive Self Talk includes statements made to yourself that will improve your mindset and mood to think optimistically about decisions that you will make and behaviors that you will engage in.
Positive Self Talk: Janet tells herself: “I know my husband and I are both tired. I am going to leave this bedroom, talk to him in a calm voice tone and make good eye contact. After we talk, our night will go smoothly and we will compromise co-parenting tasks.”
Now that I have introduced you to these 5 awesome tips to control your irritability, I want you to try it this week if Irritability appears throughout the week. No matter what setting you are in, these steps DO work.
To conclude,
Please share your experiences with me via email or reply to this blog. I would love to hear from you. To keep in touch or SHARE with others, be sure to visit and SHARE this blog on social media and sign up for my Go Getter Newsletters that will offer more FREE tools or link you to great services located on my home page right under my slide show!
Additional Blog Topic that may be helpful:
3 Tips to Give your Partner Space in a Healthy Way
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