When anger comes quickly, counting to ten might seem useless. Even after counting, you might still feel like yelling, slamming a door, or saying something you’ll regret. The key is to know how to use those ten seconds.
To manage anger and aggression, stop what you’re doing, identify your feelings, look at the thought behind it, and choose the outcome you want before you react. David W. Earle’s book What To Do While You Count To 10 highlights how to use this pause in a practical way.
Why Anger Can Feel Impossible to Stop
Anger is an emotion. Aggression is an action. You remain responsible for both.
Anger can make you breathe faster, tense up, and feel like you must act right away. Earle calls this “Reacting Under the Influence,” or being “emotionally drunk“. In this state, you might feel justified but lose track of what could happen next.
Taking a pause lets your body and mind catch up. Research from 154 studies shows that deep breathing, relaxation, and taking a timeout work better to reduce anger than just venting.
What Should You Do While You Count to 10?
Count slowly and keep your breathing steady. Use the pause for a specific reason.
- Pause before you act. Put your phone down, step away from the argument, and keep your hands still. This delay helps you avoid doing something you can’t take back.
- Identify what you’re feeling. Earle says emotions act like an internal radar and uses five main feeling words: mad, sad, glad, hurt, and fear. Using the right word helps you understand your experience better.
Figure out what thought is behind your feelings. It might be something like, “She disrespected me,” or “I have to win.” Then ask yourself if that thought is true, false, or missing some facts.
