How To Deal With Frustration And Maintain Your Mental Health

It can often be difficult to calm down quickly in tense situations. While anger and frustration can come quickly and cloud a person's judgment, a sudden burst of frustration does not have to mean that they are immediately overcome with negative emotions. 

Several coping strategies can be used to prevent frustration from building or tamp it down once it appears. If you're quick to become frustrated and need to calm down quickly, try using one of the suggestions below.

General advice for managing frustration

Specific tips to reduce feelings of anger and frustration are described below, but you may also wish to consider the following general advice:

• If you feel yourself becoming angry or frustrated, try to remove yourself from the situation as quickly as possible. It is significantly more difficult to calm yourself once negative emotions have begun to flow freely.

• Practice the tips listed below at times when you are not frustrated. Familiarizing yourself with the process when you are not distressed will likely make it easier to calm yourself when you're genuinely frustrated.

• After becoming frustrated to the point where you need to take time to cool off, consider taking additional time to evaluate where your feelings were coming from. Examining which situations are likely to provoke you may make it easier to avoid becoming frustrated in the future.

Tip No. 1: Progressively relax your muscles

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is widely considered the gold standard for relaxation and frustration relief. Completing a few rounds of PMR doesn't take long, but it requires a quiet, calm space where you can sit or lie down without being disturbed. Once you have found a space, follow these steps:

1. Find a comfortable position lying down or sitting upright in a chair.
2. Inhale deeply, then tightly clench your toes. Release them slowly, exhaling as you do so. Pay attention to the feeling of your muscles coming out of tension.
3. Next, tense the muscles of your feet or calves. Clench the muscles tightly and slowly release them, again exhaling.
4. Move upward through your body, progressively clenching different muscle groups as you move upward.
5. If you reach the top of your body and still feel frustrated, repeat the process. It often takes three or four cycles before you feel completely relaxed.

You can likely increase the effectiveness of your PMR session by imagining calming scenes and soothing imagery. Evidence suggests that picturing comforting scenes can significantly reduce stress.

Tip No. 2: Try diaphragmatic breathing

Taking deep breaths in times of distress

Some may be tempted to dismiss a simple breathing exercise as a cliché solution, but evidence suggests that deep breaths in times of distress can alleviate negative and overwhelming feelings in minutes or seconds.

Diaphragmatic breathing works best if you can find a quiet, calm space to be alone. If you can't, belly breaths may still be a viable option. To begin, close your eyes and slowly let the air out of your lungs. Then begin inhaling slowly. If you can, slowly inhale for five or six seconds. When your lungs are full, hold your breath for two or three seconds. Then slowly exhale, taking another five or six seconds to do so. Repeat until your feelings of frustration dissipate.

Tip No. 3: Adopt an exercise routine

Regular physical activity is a commonly recommended intervention for those who experience frequent stress, anger, or frustration. Evidence suggests that aerobic exercise can both reduce feelings of distress as they occur and help prevent negative feelings from escalating in the future. You don't need to push yourself to the limit of your physical abilities. On the contrary, even a brisk walk can provide substantial benefits.

If you're feeling overly frustrated in the moment, trying a round of progressive muscle relaxation or diaphragmatic breathing may be beneficial before starting your exercise routine. Based on current research, exercise does lower feelings of stress immediately, but it may have significantly more utility as a tool to prevent frustration from rising in the first place.

Tip No. 4: Seek constructive support for your mental health

For many years, the mental health community endorsed a "let it all out" perspective regarding anger and frustration. Researchers felt that anger needed to be released physically, leading therapists to advise their clients to express anger by hitting soft objects or punching bags to release built-up anger. Later research roundly defied this belief. Studies indicated that letting out frustration physically didn't soothe anger but instead made it more likely a person would become angry when they were next provoked.

Venting anger verbally and constructively

Other research found a similar effect when people vent their anger verbally. Although many people feel better immediately after venting anger, it is associated with an increase in negative emotions, including anger and frustration. However, expressing anger in healthy, constructive ways can significantly reduce the negative impact of frustration without increasing anger in the long run.

Experts recommend soliciting perspectives from others when venting. You can still express what upset you and how it made you feel, but you should include prompts for the other person to offer their perspective. Asking things like "How can I think about this another way?" or "How do I handle this situation next time?" opens the conversation to a productive dialogue that can help you manage your anger in the future.

Tip No. 5: Keep a frustration journal

Anger and frustration can often appear suddenly, and it may not always be apparent what is causing the feelings. A commonly used mental health tool, journaling, offers a potential solution. Consider keeping a record of when you have become frustrated enough that you needed to take active steps to calm yourself down. You can keep a physical journal or maintain one digitally as long as you remember to write down what you remember following an episode of frustration.

Journaling as a tool to understand yourself

Journaling won't help much in the moment, but it can be an extremely valuable tool for better understanding yourself and your feelings. You can record any information about the encounter you consider to be relevant, but here are a few suggestions of things to note:

• Date, time, and location.
• The person or persons involved in the encounter.
• Any triggering events, or things that made you feel especially frustrated in a short period.
• Steps you took to calm down.

As you look back through your journal, you may be able to recognize patterns or glean insights that weren't immediately obvious. Once you identify patterns, you can take steps to avoid or mitigate your frustration triggers.

Tip No. 6: Improve your communication skills

Frustration often appears because of misunderstandings or jumping to conclusions too early. Practicing communication skills can help you choose non-confrontational reactions and will likely allow you to stop and evaluate the situation before continuing. You will likely also become better at getting the information you need and asking clarifying questions that do not appear defensive or antagonistic.

Leaving as a way of how to deal with frustration

While conversation can be nuanced and complex, there is likely one piece of advice that stands out above the rest: if you feel yourself getting frustrated and need to cool down, leave. Exiting a situation before anger and frustration appear is nearly always preferable to allowing it to enter a dialogue. If you're able, try to offer a promise to come back at another time and finish the discussion, if necessary.

Other tips for making communication frustration-free

Here are a few extra tips to ensure your communication is frustration-free:

• Use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. For example, instead of "You never care about my feelings," consider something like "I don't feel heard when I express how I feel."
• Take note of your nonverbal cues. Make sure your posture, facial expression, and tone of voice are neutral and not aggressive.
• Ask open-ended questions that allow the other person to explain their point of view. Open-ended questions usually begin with "why," "how," or "what" and cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. An example might be, "What do you think we could do to improve next time?"

As always, a calm, non-threatening demeanor is essential. Leaving a conversation is acceptable if it threatens to become hostile. You can find more information about healthy communication here.

Can therapy help with learning how to deal with frustration?

Online therapy offers an opportunity to avail of the skills of a mental health professional without leaving home. If you're concerned that your frustration is difficult to handle, seeking the help of a therapist is likely to provide you with helpful solutions and guidance. Online therapy is often appealing because it removes common barriers to therapy, like traveling to an office or being restricted to nearby therapists only.

Benefits of online therapy for your mental health

Online therapists have the same training and credentials as traditional therapists, and they use the same evidence-based techniques to help their clients manage feelings of frustration and anger, such as emotional control. A therapist can also help with stress management, improving communication, or almost any concern that affects your well-being. Although online therapists deliver their services remotely, evidence indicates it is just as effective as in-person therapy.