Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

Just drink a beer in your pub and talk to a stranger about anything

This is a trait common to religious people. Society's secularization is still progressing slowly, and for a lot of people, their lives and worldviews are still attached to religion pretty significantly. I don't think this is a purely Christian trait. Embed yourself in Indian communities and listen to the conversations among us. Social life revolves around communal prayer and devotional singing, in addition to travelling to temples for services.

Personally, I see no showboating in the above comment. I see a sincere expression of something which helped, and I don't feel that it merits derision.

I agree with the thread of people here saying "your job" is the problem here, EXCEPT, I'm betting it's probably not "your job" per se, but rather "some douchebag at your job." Hard to say, since you didn't give any info about that, and in fact weren't really asking about that. Normally I hate when people answer a "how do I..." question with "Now why on earth would you want to..." but in this case it's quite obvious the problem and the solution is further "upstream" if you will.

Anyway yes there's a component to anger that can be caused by shortcomings in yourself. And yes it reflects a frustration, a disconnect between what you want and what the world actually is. What has to be sorted out is whether "what you want" is reasonable to expect or not. Sometimes you're asking the moon and should accept you're not going to get it. Sometimes however, anger is your tough big brother, stepping in to stick up for you in a shitty and unfair situation. In other words if "what you want" is to be treated with basic human dignity in the workplace, that is absolutely not too much to ask. And again I'm wagering, the problem traces to one or two specific people. Perhaps you need to defeat them in some sort of battle (not physical, or you're going to jail) for them to respect you. Perhaps they annoy everybody else on the team too, and should be removed. Thus I'm coming back full-circle to "maybe it's not the job per se." Maybe your job is precisely the thing you wish you could be allowed to do, if only it weren't for these one or two assholes. Deal with the assholes. Defeat them if you can (and anger probably won't help you here... we're talking straightforward but discreetly sneaky workplace maneuvering) or retreat (leave the job) if you have to. Meanwhile all the other advice still applies... deal with your parental baggage, your diet/weight problem, your expectations of life, your emotions, etc. so that you're less vulnerable to this sort of thing (being made angry).

Edit: and by the way "your diet/weight problem," if you have one (I'm baldly asserting it but I mean it to be taken as pure conjecture) may be both the cause of, and caused by, the anger. Stress makes the body store calories. And then carrying those calories around in the form of fat, subconsciously reminds you of all the other times you were angry and stressed, and increases the chance that when presented with the same or similar situation, or even a dissimilar situation, you'll react again the same way.

What is causing you emotion at your workplace? Are you being treated unfairly?

My short answer would be to find a new job. I've never had a job that caused me so much stress it caused issues at home. Sure, there have been times when my boss did something to really piss me off and I got angry, but those are isolated incidents.

At one of my jobs I was promised something that never came (I should have gotten it in writing). I asked about it every year, until it bothered me so much I gave them an ultimatum. They refused, I quit and moved on, and am much happier in the end.

Obviously this is what works for me so YMMV.

I like rock climbing as a workout. I specifically prefer that because it requires me to be 100% mentally engaged in it while climbing. It is a combination of meditative ways of thinking as well as physical exercise and blocks everything else out. Anger during climbing is utterly counterproductive. It doesn't de-escalate as much as it distracts and focuses.

And most importantly, it doesn't rely on transferring my frustration and anger to others...which is a bad habit of mine.