Last Updated on January 29, 2024 by Brenda

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In the spirit of promoting mental wellness, we have some tips to help you deals with frustrations.  It is so important that we teach our youth ways to deal with negative emotions that avoid harming others.  Social media and isolation have robbed them of the social skills needed to navigate community.  The first step to teaching is to model appropriate behavior. 

How do you deal with frustrations or negative emotions?  Do you yell, scream or hit? Or do you ignore it and push it down?  Neither of these is effective and actually may make you feel worse.  During our first podcast the following tips were shared.

The “5-Minute Vent.” Set a timer for 5 minutes.  During this 5 minutes vent your frustrations and once the timer goes off stop.  This allows you the opportunity to release frustrations without dwelling on them.  It is important for you to release this negative energy to promote your own mental health. This practical approach aligns with the overarching theme of acknowledging challenges while maintaining a positive outlook.

A tip for children is to give them a piece of paper that they can draw or write their frustrations on.  Then they can wad it up and throw it away or tear it into little pieces.

We have been reading books about emotions at our library’s story time and they are available for check out.  Teaching children words to describe how they feel and appropriate ways to deal with emotions is easier when in story form.

Another tip for dealing with people that make you angry is to go to a place where you are by yourself and speak out loud all of the things you wished you could have said at the time, but knew were inappropriate.  This gives you a way to vent and then you can be present for your family when you get home instead of dwelling on something that happened earlier in the day.

Find ways that work for you to let go of things that make you angry and you will free up your emotional space to enjoy the things you really like to do.