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People at work are asking me why I am not working as many hours as I used to. I am. But I am working on anger management. Here are seven tips I’ve tried using:
1. Face the problem and make it a priority.
I used to think anger management problem is a thing for men who are in prison for setting their wives on fire. Now I see it's a problem for people who think they will get fired for being unpleasant. Or for people who think their kids will grow up and hate them for being emotionally unpredictable.
I am both those people.
2. Focus on your trigger points.
The time I most consistently lose my temper is trying to get the kids out of the house in the morning. So I told myself to not lose my temper.
That didn't work.
So I have been waking up at 5:30 because I need to give myself two hours to be completely organized and calm so that I can get the kids and myself out the door for school and work at 7:30 without screaming at the kids for not eating fast enough because I changed my clothes for work three times and got behind and forgot to make lunches.
I thought of having the nanny come in the morning to help me. But I hate feeling like I'm married to the nanny, and I hate feeling like I can't do normal parenting things on my own. The mornings with the kids seem theoretically intimate, and making school lunches seems like a rite of passage for moms with school-aged kids. I want all that.
3. Use deep breathing to regulate stress.
I have been doing
for ten years. I thought I was amazing at yoga, but now I see that the point of yoga, calming, centering, whatever, is lost on someone who is focusing on the routine of
fifty push-ups and five headstands. Now the breathing resonates with me, when I do it at 5:30 am as a desperate attempt to keep myself calm long enough to get to work.
3. Have a regular sleep schedule to improve your ability to self-regulate.
I pack the school lunches the night before. And I pick out my clothes the night before. The guys I work with think I don't ever change my clothes. This is sometimes true. Especially when I'm depressed. But a lot of times I change my clothes but all my clothes look the same so I don't even get credit for having thought about it the night before.
To get up at 5:30 am with a good night's sleep I have to go to bed at 9:30pm which means I have to get the kids to bed by 8pm so I can have an hour to do lunches and clothes and washing my face, which, if you are my age, takes ten minutes because of all the cream stuff I use.
I do not explain this when a co-worker asks why I don't have twenty minutes to fix home page copy at 8:30 pm.
4. Accept that every day includes unpredictability, and that's okay.
So it's a regular day where I am insanely regimented in a desperate effort to not be angry but at 7am I realize that I forgot to pack to go to 's house. I also realize that it's freezing outside, and I didn't put the car in the garage and it's going to take ten minutes of warming up the car so I can scrape the ice.
Then my seven-year-old can't find socks without holes in them.
I change my clothes so I can scrape the ice and I yell from my bedroom that he should look in his brother's drawer for socks.
He yells back up that he wants me to sew the socks so that we are not wasting. “It's recycling,” he yells.
5. Understand the true source of your frustration.
Then the boys have a fist-fight about who is wearing whose socks. I do not catch them until there's a cheek scrape which upsets me because now my four-year-old will go to school looking like he lives in a boxing ring.
I have prepared myself for a moment like this: I identify that I am not upset with my sons but upset with what the world thinks of me as a parent. I tell myself I am good at self-regulation and I do not take this frustration out on my children.
I say, “Put on nice socks and let's have breakfast.” I want to tell you I used a calm voice, but I worry I used a psycho, calm-before-the-storm voice.
6. Understand the impact food has on your moods.
I make waffles. I watch the kids eat squishy, warm, covered-in-syrup waffles. I watch them wash down the drippy syrup with marsh-mallowed hot chocolate. I am convinced that when I eat sugar and bread it makes me crazy–that I just want more and then cannot think of anything else.
(There is such interesting research on this. Click : A study about how civilization is based on the opiate effect of grains on humans.) It takes every bit of self-discipline in my body not to steal scraps of waffle from the four-year-old's plate. I need to remember to not give him so much. I need him to feel more protective of his portion.
7. Use solutions-based language in tense conversations.
I want so much to be remembered as a dream mom that I put their mittens and coats over the heater so they are warm after breakfast.
The kids don’t notice warmness because they are punching each other, furtively, like I'm not going to see them if it's under their jackets.
As we walk out the door, my seven-year-old starts crying: the snow pants in his backpack are wrong.
I tell him those are to keep at school. I tell him I am streamlining our morning by keeping snow pants at school so we don't have to bring them back and forth.
He does not like his other pair. He is crying. I decide I am going to take a firm line because really, it's school that makes him nervous and he finds something to cry about every morning and I have to put a stop to this.
I tell him I already made a decision about the pants. I tell him I am the mom and I already made a decision. This is good. Kids feel secure when they have boundaries and authority.
He screams.
I pound the refrigerator with my fist.
I scream, “Shut the fuck up with the crying.”
I scream, “If you don't quit crying every fucking single morning I'm never taking you to school again.”
That's how it is. Nearly 24 hours of preparation to get through a morning without me yelling, and still, I break thirty rules of anger management in thirty seconds.
My four-year-old says, “Mommy, you're hurting me.” And he covers his ears.
8. Slow down a tough situation so you make good decisions.
I take a time-out for myself in the living room. I say a prayer to the god of anger, if there is one: please let me always pound the refrigerator and not my kids.
I take them to school. I kiss them too much when I say goodbye. I tell them I love them like my life depends on it, while other moms, who clearly do not worry about yelling and maybe don't even worry about waffles, casually do drop-off and drive off to the gym.
Then I go to work, and everyone is laughing and joking about , and I yell, “Arrrggh! Can everyone please shut up for twenty minutes so I can finish my post? I can't think with all the banter.”
tells me that it's not that I can't work with talking. I work with talking all the time. He says, “It's self-loathing. Take some responsibility.”
I want to tell him to fuck off. But I need a quiet place to write this post, so I go to his office, and sit on the floor, and I hope he doesn't talk to me, because it's 8:30 am and already I am not having a good anger management day.
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Quistic is my newest startup, and it’s a place to find online courses that will help you in your career.Steering Wheel Vibration:
My Car Shakes While I’m DrivingUpdated on April 23, 2015
Your car shakes while driving down the highway, the steering wheel vibration is driving you crazy, and without you even realizing it, it's causing you to feel tired. It can be quite exhausting holding onto a steering wheel that’s shaking.
Do You Need an Alignment?
Probably Not!I hear this from cu they pull into the garage and say, "I need to have an alignment on my car because my steering wheel shakes when I drive on the highway."
The truth is an alignment has nothing to do with your car shaking or your steering wheel vibrating. If you tell your mechanic you need an alignment, and they don't ask why, find a new mechanic. A good mechanic will always ask why you need work done on your car, so they can get enough information to decide how to fix the problem on the first visit.
Alignment, Balance:
Two Different ThingsMechanics use these words to refer to different operations, though sometimes you get them both done at once.
Alignments only realign the tires so they are all pointing in the proper direction while driving down the road. If a car’s tires need alignment, it may pull one way or the other instead of straight when you let go of the steering wheel, or the tires may wear unevenly (deeper on the inside than the outside or vice versa).
If a car's tires need balancing, on the other hand, it may shake at freeway speed, or the tires may wear in a cupped or scallopped pattern. Balancing a tire means making sure the weight of the tire-and-wheel unit is balanced all around the axle, with every section having equal weight. The first step in balancing a tire is to match the heaviest part of the rim (usually the valve stem) to the lightest part of the rim (a yellow dot painted by the manufacturer on the tire's sidewall). Then the mechanic places the tire and rim on a balance machine, which positions plastic or metal weights as needed on the outer part of the rim to fine-tune the balance.
Balancing is something you might do routinely whenever you rotate the tires, every six months or 6000 to 7500 miles. Sometimes tire stores will offer you lifetime tire balancing and rotation. I highly recommend this service. Checking the tires routinely to see if they are wearing oddly will make them last longer and cost you less in the long run.
Alignment is something you might do routinely every year or so. It won't stop a steering wheel vibration, but it's good preventative maintenance, especially if you drive often on potholed, cracked, or dirt roads.
See all 6 photos
A pothole may affect your tire's balance or its alignment
Tires Out of BalanceThe most common reason your tires shake or your steering wheel vibrates is simple: your tires are out of balance. Tires take a beating when they hit potholes, bridge expansion joints, and curbs. Hitting any one of these objects could knock off a wheel weight, dent a rim, or cause a bubble in the sidewall of the tire, causing it to be out of balance. If you lose a wheel weight, it' you just need to have your tire balanced at the local garage.
Balancing should cost around $15-20 a tire. Of course denting a rim or damaging a tire could end up costing you more, because you might have to replace the tire instead of just balancing it.
Pothole Damage:
Can These Tires Be Saved?
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Bubble in sidewall of tire after hitting a large pothole.Source: eddiecarrara
See all 6 photos
If you hit a pothole at high speed you could dent the rim and damage the tire.Source: eddiecarrara
Foreign Objects, Snow, and Ice Can Make a Steering Wheel ShakeAnother common cause of steering wheel vibration or car shake is having something lodged in a tire, like a large bolt, or any metal object you may have picked up from the road's surface (I have seen even wrenches and screwdrivers impaling a tire). If you live in an area that has snow, plowing through a snowbank could cause snow and ice to become trapped in the rim or wheel and cause a serious steering wheel vibration. Easy to fix: just rinse out the snow and ice with a garden hose or pressure washer.
Packed Snow and Ice Can Cause Vibration
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If you drive through a snow bank and have a horrible vibration soon after, check your wheels for packed snow and ice.
Low Tire Pressure Can Cause Your Car to ShakeLow tire pressure is another common cause of steering wheel vibration or car shake. Low tire pressure can cause problems:
poor fuel mileage
abnormal tire wear
vibrations
tire edge wear
chopping or scallopping
and the list goes on. A quick check of your tire pressures can save you money in the long run, in many ways.
In cold weather, tire pressures drop. When the temperatures outside drop below 30o F, I recommend raising the tire pressure about 3 psi above where you would normally keep it.
It's smart to keep a tire pressure gauge in your glove compartment.&
Bald Tires Cause Very Bad VibrationsIf your tires are so worn that the ridges on the tread are smoothed out, or steel fibers are showing through the rubber anywhere, change your tires immediately. Bald tires will definitely cause your steering wheel to vibrate and your car to shake. Furthermore, if you continue driving on bald tires, they are likely to blow out, and having a tire blow out at highway speeds is extremely dangerous, especially if it's a front tire.
Don't be afraid to look at your tires to see if bald tires are causing your problems. You need to physically look at each tire. Turning the steering wheel to one side will give you a better view of the tread surface on your front tires. You will need to get on your hands and knees to check your rear tires closely.
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A front tire with bald spotsSource:
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A bald tire that blew outSource:
Other Vibrations That Could Be Confused With Tire VibrationVibrations in your car don't always come from tire problems. In the first video, there is not only bad shaking from an unbalanced tire, but also a wheel-bearing noise that is louder when the steering wheel is turned to one side. In the second, the car shakes hard when the brakes are applied; the problem is with the brake rotors.
A Car With Both Tire Vibration and Wheel Bearing Noise
Don't Mistake a Brake Pulsation for a Tire Vibration
Don't Be Afraid to AskDon't be afraid to ask questions or leave comments. There is no such thing as as a stupid question, so just ask, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
If you found this information useful, please share it using the Facebook or Twitter buttons at the top of the page. Thank you for all your help.
More on Car Noises From Eddie Carrara Your mechanic says you need a wheel bearing, what's a wheel bearing? Pictures, video, and discussion of what a wheel bearing is, what its job is, where it's located, and the noises it can make.
Learn how to change a front wheel bearing with a step-by-step guide with photos and a video. What a damaged wheel bearing sounds like and how to determine which wheel bearing is causing the noise.
There are four common car noises that drive a vehicle owner crazy. I will explain to you what they are and what you need to do to fix them. Plus a little secret that you should know when buying a new car.
Grinding, thumping, squeaking, and scraping.
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