Anger. It’s powerful, stressful, and leaves us feeling out of control of what’s happening around us. If you’re experiencing anger after trauma, you might feel even more intense emotions.
By being here, you’ve already shown acknowledgment of your emotions, which is the first step to releasing anger. If you’d like to explore yoga for anger, journaling is a supportive way to increase the benefits of a calming practice. I welcome you to read these 15 journal prompts to release your rage and invite a calm inner landscape.
How Anger Impacts Your Body
You may know the emotional symptoms of anger (rage, guilt, frustration, irritability), but do you know that anger overtime can lead to health complications? This paper from the National Library of Medicine explored how suppressed and unprocessed anger can result in unhealthy coping strategies, potentially leading to:
- Substance abuse
- Type 2 diabetes
- Coronary heart disease
- Disordered eating
I offer a gentle reminder that anger left unprocessed doesn’t guarantee you’ll experience the above, but I offer this as a way to show that our emotions can be quite powerful.
You may have also noticed when you’re angry you have increased shoulder or jaw tension. If you like, you might choose to learn more about How Trauma is Stored in Our Bodies for more guidance to how tension arises after trauma and ways to find release in common areas like your jaw, hips, and shoulders.
How Yoga Supports Anger Release
Yoga uses various techniques to relax your body, reduce stress, increase flexibility, muscular strength, and promote wellbeing.
The combination of breathwork, flowing breath to movement, mindfulness, meditations and other spiritual work create a class that is perfect for easing intense emotions, including anger.
Here are a few benefits of a yoga practice on anger release:
- This randomized controlled trial found that eight weeks of a yoga intervention program reduced verbal aggressiveness in healthy individuals
- This interventional study discovered that six weeks of yoga helped medical students reduce anxiety, depression, and anger and promote a sense of well-being.
- This integrative review found that yoga was effective in reducing anger in older populations and increased a sense of well-being
You may also notice that you experience anger after a yoga class, even if you weren’t before. To learn why this happens, you might explore these reasons for Why You’re Angry After Yoga.
Are There Benefits To Journaling?
Journaling provides additional benefits to your yoga practice so you can find anger release through practice and writing.
- This study examined journaling’s effects on children and families, discovering reduced stress levels in the participants after just three minutes of journaling.
- The National Library of Medicine explored how journaling promotes acceptance of emotions. While you may understand you’re angry, accepting the emotion fully by writing how you feel can reduce the power it has over you.
15 Yoga for Anger Journal Prompts
I welcome you to use these prompts directly, as inspiration, and to adjust them however you choose.
I do not aim these prompts to work directly with your trauma, but more of a way to explore your current state. I recommend that you to reach out to your support team before beginning any practice that works directly with trauma, or to see if journaling is supportive of your healing journey.
Remember, there are no wrong answers in your journaling practice. You can veer off the path, keep it simple, write a novel, it’s all good.
- Where in my body do I feel anger? (Shoulders, stomach clenching, jaw, or elsewhere)
- If my anger were a color, what would it be?
- If I could draw a picture of my anger, what would it look like? (Zig-zag lines, a black hole, scribbles, anything that speaks to you)
- What type of yoga class would sound best for me right now? You could even skip your practice if that’s most resonating with you.
- Is there any support person, family member, or close loved one I could plan to connect with after my practice? What makes that person safe to talk to?
- What would it look like for anger to leave my body? I welcome you to imagine anger as a specific color gently flowing out of you, or maybe you imagine your body softening.
- What would be supportive in this moment?
- What could bring me more comfort right now? A blanket, pillows, laying down or sitting?
- Are there any affirmations that could support me? If you’re unsure which affirmations to use, I invite you to explore these 49 trauma-informed affirmation ideas.
- If I could write a letter of compassion to myself, what would it say? You could imagine you’re talking to someone else or a younger version of yourself.
- Are there any yoga poses, breathwork, or other techniques that I’ve done in the past to relieve anger that I could try at this moment?
- I invite you to place one or two hands where you feel anger. You could explore sending yourself compassion for a few breaths. Were there any shifts from this gentle practice?
- What kind words can I send to myself?
- What was something healthy I did last time I was angry to calm my nerves?
- Anger is a powerful emotion and might make you feel you are your emotions. I welcome you to use this prompt: I am feeling angry, but I am… (insert as many positive qualities about yourself as you choose.)
These journal prompts provide you with the starting point to soften your anger before your yoga practice. I welcome you to journal in a way that feels authentic to you and your experience. The work you are doing is powerful, and I wish you the best on your healing journey.
For more emotional support, I invite you to read my Emotional Healing After Trauma Guide for trauma-informed yoga practices that tend to emotions.
3 Tips When You’re Facing Writer’s Block
Here are three tips to explore if you’re facing writer’s block during your journaling practice:
- You don’t always need to journal. If it’s causing more stress than reducing it, it’s 100% okay to skip it. You might have inspiration strike later, or not at all.
- I invite you to start with listing what you immediately notice, and see what branches from there. You might write something as simple as “I’m angry.” Then you might write why, or where you feel it in your body. Even writing something as simple as the words “I’m angry,” could be enough for that day.
- Start writing about something else. A simple way to journal is to summarize your day, right when you woke up (even if it was 5 minutes ago). You can be as descriptive as you want. Writing in any form is a way to reduce the blank page overwhelm so you can branch off if you choose.
Explore More Journal Prompts
If you’d like to explore more journal prompts, I invite you to read my other journaling blog posts:
- 5 Somatic Journal Prompts For Trauma Support
- 5 Self-Compassion Journaling Prompts for Somatic Sexual Trauma Healing (with PDF)
A Free, Gentle Yoga Practice For Releasing Anger
I welcome you to accompany your journaling with this free 17 minute yoga class. This trauma informed yoga practice explores somatic release for anger and irritability with gentle movement and nervous system regulation.
Oftentimes, simply acknowledging how you’re feeling is enough for your body to release its hold of an emotion. We’ll explore awareness of the anger we hold, as well as somatic movements to discharge anger and release tension where anger becomes stuck like your upper body, jaw, and hips.
