Anger Diet, The: Thirty Days to Stress-Free Living

by Brenda Shoshanna

"Shoshanna extends an empty and richly filled hand, offering both the sublime and the practical," Publishers Weekly once noted of Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D. Now Shoshanna unites the sublime and the practical once again, this time to show us how to rid ourselves of anger and become immune to its toxic effects in a new 30-day program called The Anger Diet. Road rage, school shootings, workplace violence, domestic abuse, drug addiction, and even the national obesity epidemic are manifestations of an overarching problem gripping our anger. Other books about anger are on the market, but this is the first and only "diet" from a practical, step-by-step 30-day program designed to help readers cleanse their lives of the toxic effects of anger. As Dr. Shoshanna points out, "It is one thing to have an intellectual understanding of what is harmful. It is something else to know how to actually get rid of anger in your life." The Anger Diet is the book that bridges the gap between intellectual understanding and practical action. The practical actions correspond to the 24 forms of anger, many of which are hidden; each form is identified and addressed in its own chapter. Each day readers are asked to give up one form of anger and are given a replacement for it. One chapter per day, one day at a time, readers will learn how to loosen anger's hold on their lives and gain greater happiness, health, and peace.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Ebooks

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

I am a psychologist, speaker, author and long term Zen practitoner who is dedicated to integrating the teachings and practices of East and West, and showing how to make them real in our everyday lives.

My weekly podcast is Zen Wisdom For Your Everyday Life.

Zen Wisdom For Your Everyday Life
(www.zenwisdomtoday.com)

Reviews

[Ugnė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buvo smalsu ir norėjau pabandyti, o kadangi kalbėjau daug, išėjo taip, kad bandėme keturiese :D Ir aš manau, kad tai buvo didžiausiais "dietos" pliusas, nes galėjom kalbėtis, aptarinėti ir šaipytis viena iš kitos :)

Per tas 30 dienų tikrai pykau ir pykau ne kartą - neįskaičiau to, kad viskas, pykti nebegalima. Tačiau knyga siūlo pasižiūrėti į savo pyktį per įvairias patirtis, prisiminimus ir galbūt prisigalvojimus, kas jau iš karto lėmė, kad pykau kitaip arba kitaip apie savo pyktį galvojau. Pvz., atradau, kad ilgai pykstu ir nešioju nuoskaudas, jei nesudarau sau progos iš karto arba kuo greičiau pasakyti, kaip jaučiuosi, ko noriu arba kodėl kito elgesys man atrodo durnas. Stebuklo nesitikiu, suprantu, kad matyt ir ateityje tokių situacijų dar bus, ir vis tiek manau, kad reaguosiu greičiau.

Dar pamačiau, kad tikrai mažai pykčio turiu visokiems abstraktiems deriniams - valdžiai, kažkokioms grupėms, visatai, likimui, Dievui ir t.t., ir pan., ir tikrai galiu smarkiai ir tyliai pykti ant šalia esančiųjų. Iš vienos pusės kaip ir gerai nesuabsoliutinti ir žinoti konkretų adresatą, iš kitos pusės suprantu, kad pražiūriu ir ant žmogaus pyktu, nors problemą sukuria sistemos.

Žodžiu, įdomi patirtis. Karantiną tikrai paįvairino :)

[Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Cognitive Behavioral book for coping with anger. In order to be able to use it, you need to have enough insight to be able to correctly recognize which subjects that the author discusses that do and do not apply to you. Trust me when I say they cannot possibly all apply to you. There are exercises which you need to complete to apply the ideas in the book. It was somewhat frustrating for me to do the ones that did not apply to me. I tried to use these parts of the book to understand the behavior of others. I did find several parts of the book helpful. Most of the anger that I was dealing with was from one source in my life. I was able to deal with it constructively before I finished the book, so I did not complete it.

The only part of the book that I read that I really have a problem with is the part where she suggests tonglen meditation as a method to deal with your anger with others. I think tonglen is great in theory, and I'm sure it could be very healing. I found it difficult to practice on my own even with more involved instructions, and I also found that it brought up a lot of emotions that I wasn't really ready for even when I wasn't feeling particularly emotional. Not that I'm an expert, but I wouldn't neccessarily recommend it for working on anger without knowing a person had some spiritual and emotional support ready.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you feel yourself getting stressed out easily? Angry at things in your life? Upset and irritated by events out of our control? Maybe just stressed and not even sure what is making you so upset? Then this book might be for you.

There are 30 different sections in this book about things that can be a trigger for anger and stress. Some are obvious, some are less so. Some will apply to some people. Others will apply to other people. Not all will apply to anyone.

After each section of identifying causes of stress and anger there are activities to do, mainly involving self introspection and journaling, on identifying how this section may apply to you and ways to relieve your stress in this area. It seems to me that identifying that something is causing you stress and anger is half the battle, so honestly I didn't do these activities, but just read through them.

All in all an interesting read. I can't say that I have "stress-free living" after my 30 days of reading this, but it has caused me to think about triggers for stress in my life, and how to step back and identify they are stressing me, and trying to nip the stress in the bud before it escalates. Recognize it, then work on letting it go, not letting it bother me.

[Raven · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I generally hate to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”, the few nuggets of wisdom here are buried underneath some pretty heavy judgment, opinion written as fact, and references to “studies” which are never named. I picked this up at a used bookstore because a cursory look showed some interesting Journal prompts. Little did I know that what was lurking inside would be so awful.

The author would have us believe that Depression, Suicide, and Terrorism are all simply and neatly explained as anger expressed improperly or not at all. Read that sentence as many times as you like. It isn’t ever going to make any more sense than it did the first time.

Here is the direct quote about terrorism: “Catastrophic Expectations: some individuals live their lives in terror and fear. They are always expecting something awful to happen,seeking problems, and dwelling upon danger, and are unable to shake the sense that they are vulnerable to the random chaos of the world. This is the basis of terrorism.” Seriously? Talk about jumping to conclusions and writing opinion as fact. I feel quite certain that some terrorists are angry, but catastrophic thinking is not the sole basis for terrorism. It is a bit more complicated than that.

Other gems include the idea that suicide is simply attention seeking. Wow, just wow. And if we follow this “program” we can become anger-free. Let’s be clear, the goal here isn’t merely decreasing the effects of anger in our lives or learning to express it in a more healthy manner, but rather the goal of this book is to remove anger as one of the naturally experienced emotions. This is stated in the Introduction. Not only is that an unrealistic goal, but in my opinion it is an unhealthy one as well. We can’t simply remove a difficult emotion from our experiences. It just doesn’t work that way.

Chapter 7, Day 2 is titled Judging Others, but by chapter 7 the author has already been incredibly judgemental towards the very people she is supposedly helping.

Finally, there are incredibly vague references to “Studies“, but not only are these studies not mentioned within the writing or at chapter ends, but there isn’t even a Further Reading list at the end of the book to give some clue to where and how Dr. Shoshanna managed to form these beliefs about people. As of this writing she appears to be 81 years of age, but it isn’t even that the book didn’t age well. A lot of these ideas were outmoded back in 2005 when it was written.

[Lexie Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read that was over 30 days to approach different parts of anger, where it stems from and how to break things down. At some times the examples felt repetitive but overall was an interesting read.

[Andrius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neįtikėtinai aiški, paprasta naudoti praktinė knyga, padedanti įveikti pačias įvairiausias pykčio formas. Nustebino, sužavėjo, motyvuoja nestoti ir eiti šiuo keliu toliau.
Rekomenduoju skaityti ir kasdien atlikti pratimus kartu su draugais ar artimaisiais!

[Dale Gardner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Simplistic and mindless; unhelpful.

[Cristina Marie]

This book made me angry. Poor writing.

[Audrey Gaunt shedd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there was a workbook to go along with it.

[Mycala · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh my god. This book beat the crap out of me. It really is effective. Highly recommend. Seriously good advice, but get ready to take a good long look inward because it doesn't mince words.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is excellent, providing you approach it in a non-linear fashion. Flip through, find what rings a bell, and go from there. Don't take the approach of "I must read from front to back and do the exercises" or, as one reviewer found, you may end up stuck on something irrelevant to you.

It is not an "anger management" book in the sense of helping a rager find their zen (though, I suppose it could). It is more a constructive guide on recognizing how anger manifests differently across different people, it's various forms (including low self-esteem, controlling behavior, victimhood) passive and overt, and to help you recognize it, and navigate through it - whether that's your own reaction, or someone else's bad behavior. There's an entire chapter on "anger with family." Haven't we all dealt with that one!

I enjoyed it, I have a copy, I refer back to it from time to time. Dealing with an anxiety disorder for much of my life, I've learned that it is often directly tied to this topic. If, like me, you're the type to dwell and "go circles," or other's negative behavior throws you off your game completely, this is a great book to take a look at.

[Judy Croome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well structured and written in an easy style, this is a useful book dealing with the hidden ways anger affects our lives. Each chapter consists of an explanation of the a specific type of anger and real life examples, and ends with practical exercises to help work through anger. Interspersed with the chapters are exercises to help one reflect and review where and how anger sneaks into our psyche.

As is the norm with "self-help" books, this book will only be as good as the reader allows it to be - the exercises need to be answered honestly to be effective(no one else is going to read your answers, right?) Because of this it's not a quick read, but it's interesting and does provide insight into the many forms anger can disguise itself as in our every day lives. The comments and exercise on forgiveness were very good.

Knowledge is power and knowing how anger works in our lives can only be beneficial to ourselves and our relationships - this book makes that knowledge accessible and real.

An excellent read if you're experiencing anger or are a victim of anger.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. . . Not one of my usual picks (although I'm kinda getting in to self help books)

I think it did come at a useful time for me. There were some connections that made me uncomfortable (If you get rid of your anger, you'll lose weight?!?) and there were a lot of Buddhist teachings that screamed "appropriation" but overall it was a good reminder of how relationships should be.

Reality checks, daily questions for dissecting your own anger that you might be holding on to, and a lot of reassurance that the world is a good place.

[Candice]

Free on Kindle.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good suggestions.