Let me ask a question first: which emotion unites us? Some may say happiness, some may say sadness. Perhaps these two will be the most common answers. But most of us are missing out on one big player of the emotion game—yet this player gets the better of us almost every day. Well, let me clear the suspense. I asked this question for your attention to shed light on one particular emotion, and that is anger.

Now, here we are united over anger issues and being called a hothead. In this perhaps impossible—or I may say inevitable—situation, what could be our next step? One could be crying alone or maybe shouting randomly. Well, we won’t focus on these for now. Then what? Our next possible step must serve this one purpose, and that is to get back our peace of mind—and that takes time. As Timothée Chalamet once said,
“You can be the master of your fate, you can be the captain of your soul but you have to realize that life is coming from you and not at you. And that takes time.”

If you are ‘the ardent reader’ who has come this far, you must have guessed where we are heading. We are going to find ways to manage anger. Which are:

• You need to accept the feeling of anger without explaining it. Think of it like this: “Argh! I’m feeling so angry right now,” without reasoning or justifying it.
• A viable way is to take yourself out of the situation. This could be a brief walk, perhaps listening to music, cooking your favourite meal, or anything that makes you go far from the situation. Now, some of us may ask, “What happens if the issue occurred via some online interaction?” That is maybe an even easier situation. One could just log out for some time. There is no harm in taking a break.
• Use some code or signal during an anger breakout. This could be given to yourself or others that may help avoid the situation with some explanation.
• One could devote themself to a focusing game. He/she might focus on what's around them. Then list five things that he/she can see, four objects that he/she can touch, three things that one can hear, two things that the person can smell, and one last thing that he/she can taste.
• Using a grounding object is sometimes helpful. For instance, many around us use a stress ball or a fidget. These objects could be a great decoy if you consider your situation of anger as a war scenario.
• Many have found breathing slowly—inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth—helpful while being angry.
• Lastly, a pretty niche solution is to keep notes on the phone or a piece of paper about what triggers you or perhaps things to calm yourself down.

Indeed, being angry is a feeling that most of the time gets the better of us. But we should not end up being the prey of this cruel emotion named anger. For this, it is important to practice steps to manage it in order to live a healthy and happy life.