5 Tips for Managing Anger with ADHD

Whether it comes in the form of frustration, opposition, defiance, or full-blown rage, anger in all its forms seems to go hand-in-hand with ADHD.

It’s important to recognize that even if you’re on ADHD meds, medication can only do so much. Medication can help with a lot of pieces of ADHD, but we also must learn how to work effectively with our emotions.

Here are some things that have helped me.

(1) Daily Practices and Rituals

Working with anger isn’t a once-and-done deal. We must learn to work with our emotions and do so consistently, as well as have outlets for those emotions.

The staples of these practices for me include mindfulness, meditation, therapy, and coaching, as well as exercise.

I often talk about my Fitness First ritual as my saving grace. Starting every day with exercise — before I’ve checked my phone or even spoken with other people — helps me to:

• stay off my phone at the start of the day, avoiding potential triggers
• start my day in my own energy space
• channel my emotions through my body
• ground myself
• get my dopamine boost from more healthy sources and
• channel any anger into heavy lifts

before I enter the fray of the day.

Lifting heavy weights and having the freedom to slam them to the ground and scream will beat screaming into your pillow any day of the week. In fact, some of my best lifts have been fueled by anger.

That said, there’s no magic bullet to prevent anger. Unless you’re living alone in a remote location with nothing to trigger you, it’s likely that random things that happen in your day-to-day life will trigger your anger — and in ways that often don’t seem reasonable to other people.

ADHD often involves a lot of “outsized” emotions that don’t necessarily seem to be proportionate to the trigger.

So learning how to work with anger in the moment and over the long term is important.

(2) Notice Your Patterns

What circumstances trigger you feel anger?

Notice not just the external trigger of your mood but also your inner state.

For example:

• are you hungry?
• are you tired?
• are you feeling overwhelmed?
• do you feel unsupported?
• do you feel like people around you are asking too much of you?

The more agitated you already are on the inside the more likely that an external event will trigger your anger. That same set of external circumstances might land differently when you are in a calm and satiated state.

(3) Do NOT Make Your Anger Wrong

The anger you feel is a part of you. It could even be trying to help you.

Anger can be a very productive emotion and help fuel us to get things done. In fact, this may help explain why so many people with ADHD feel angry so often: anger fuels our focus.

In addition, anger can show us where someone has violated our boundaries — sometimes a boundary we didn’t even know we had.

(4) Don’t Identify With Your Anger

Notice the difference between I am angry and I feel anger.

The first one identifies with the anger. When you say “I am angry” you make it bigger than yourself, like it’s the totality of who you are. This doesn’t do much to help you.

The second recognizes that this is a passing emotion. It’s not who you are; it’s just something you feel in the moment.

All emotions are like a wave. They crest up, they peak, then they dissipate. You are the ocean.

(5) RAIN on Your Anger

I highly recommend the RAIN process, which I learned from meditation teacher Tara Brach:

• Recognize: recognize what you’re feeling
• Allow: allow it to be there without making it wrong
• Investigate: investigate the emotion. What is it telling you? What’s underneath it? For example, underneath anger is often fear and grief.
• Nurture: ask this part of you what it needs in the moment.

I’d love to hear your favorite strategies for working with anger and ADHD. Please share in the comments.