How To Deal With Frustration In A Healthy Way

By: Nicola Kirkpatrick

Updated February 10, 2020

Medically Reviewed By: Dawn Brown

Daily stress and frustration in your life can negatively impact your health in a big way. Learning how to deal with frustration can help you avoid negative effects so you can be healthier and happier.

Here's How To Deal With Frustration In A Healthy Way:

1. Use Breathing Techniques

When you start to feel frustrated, try stopping for a minute to take three full, mindful breaths. Count your breaths in and out (up to six for three cycles).

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You can use this and other breathing techniques to help you feel calmer. With practice, you will develop a technique that you can use to calm your frustration before it gets out of hand.

2. Learn To Communicate Effectively

If you deal with a lot of stress and frustration in your life, learning to communicate effectively is important. You need to be able to communicate how you feel to people. Constantly bottling up negative emotions isn't healthy and can eventually lead to a breaking point where it all comes out anyway.

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Communicating effectively also means knowing when it's good to step away from things or people that are making you frustrated or stressed out. By learning to initiate important conversations when you are calm, you can improve your chances of achieving your goals without frustration.

3. Start Journaling

Journaling is a great way to get everything you are thinking about and feeling down on paper. It's a way to release your mind's-preoccupations to make room for new things. In addition to being an outlet, journaling can also help you see patterns in your behavior and help you get to the bottom of your frustration.

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The healthiest way to deal with frustration is to spot what triggers it so you can avoid it all together. This won't work 100% of the time, but once you see what causes your stress and frustration you start coping with it better.

4. Talk To A Counsellor

If you find that lately you are frustrated easily or more than normal, you might want to schedule an appointment to talk to a therapist. A therapist can help you pinpoint why you are feeling frustrated. They can give you coping strategies and insights to help ease that frustration, too.

If you prefer the idea of talking to someone remotely instead of scheduling an in-person session, you can even sign up for BetterHelp's secure online counseling service.

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With a BetterHelp membership, you can send unlimited messages to a counselor via your computer or mobile devices. Your therapist is picked specifically based on questionnaire information that you provide when you sign up, and you can always request a new one if the first one isn't a good fit.

5. Exercise

Exercise is another healthy way to deal with frustration (although there is such a thing as too much exercise). When you are feeling stressed out or frustrated, going for a walk or run can help you feel more balanced and calm again.

Other workouts like yoga, cardio, and weight training can also help you challenge your body, clear your mind, and regain focus.

Exercise has been shown to improve mental and physical health, so taking up some sort of weekly exercise is bound to have positive effects. Once you take up regular exercise you should see some changes in your mood and energy levels.

Conclusion

Feeling frustrated 24/7 is exhausting, and the stress is not healthy either. That's why you need to find coping mechanisms that can help you not only deal with your frustration but learn how to prevent it as well.