Verified by 
Anger-prone people usually pay a big price professionally, personally, and in their health. This post aims to help.
First, here are common scenarios likely to trigger anger and how the anger-prone person might wisely respond. I stipulate up front that these are easier said than done, but are worth aspiring to. After, I’ll list the embedded principles for dealing with anger-proneness. I’ll conclude with a few tips on how to deal with an angry person.
You made a mistake. You just missed your exit, said something ill-advised, or made a honking error. You can’t control your instant disgust with yourself—it's visceral. But as soon as you can, you take a deep breath, remind yourself that beating yourself up won’t help, ask yourself what if anything you can do to ameliorate the situation, and then redirect your attention to something constructive.
Someone hit one of your sore points. All of us are particularly sensitive to one or more things. Perhaps it’s false accusations, laziness, overconfidence, rudeness, sabotage of your efforts, denigration of your intelligence or looks, or someone supporting a political figure you disdain. At the moment it occurs, it’s virtually impossible for an anger-prone person to not feel angry. But it’s critical that after that moment and before opening your mouth, you take a breath and excuse yourself at least for a moment “to go to the bathroom.” There, ask yourself what will best serve you: exploding, trying to stay measured, or not returning to the situation?
Your partner is having an affair. You both pledged to be monogamous but s/he’s cheating. Your first reaction is fury: “I didn’t deserve this. And what about diseases? I’ve been tempted but resisted. Why couldn’t s/he?” You were about to yell at your partner but mustered the restraint to leave the house and take a long walk. “In some way, did I deserve this? Or, isn’t it understandable that even in a good relationship, an affair is tempting. Indeed, many married people cheat. Should I demand it stops? Should I leave the relationship?” Of course, it’s wiser to think through the issue before letting loose with fury let alone violence that you’d later regret.
Fury at President Trump. News outlets make it easy to be angry at Trump. Indeed, a couple of my otherwise mild-mannered friends said that if they had the opportunity, they’d assassinate him. Recognize that the public’s fury with Trump is derived heavily from media filtrations of the actual Trump. You only need to watch C-SPAN’s unfiltered coverage to see that your feelings about him might at least not be so extreme if it weren't for the media's manipulative machinations. Just one current example. Note the media’s double standard: Trump’s withholding of funds to Ukraine is deemed an impeachable offense worthy of all-Trump-all-the-time-denunciation while the media devotes much less attention to Democratic vice-president Joe Biden’s son, with no oil-industry experience, being planted in a highly paid position with an important Ukrainian oil company. Whether or not that particular argument is persuasive to you, the point is that even when it seems that anger is justified, there usually is another side that at least warrants reflection rather than fury.
Principles
The previous examples embed the following principles:
Avoid triggering situations. Predisposition to anger is often physiological. Many people with anger issues go from zero to 60 in one second. It’s like an orgasm, once the angry person gets going, s/he can’t stop. So prevention is key—as much as possible, avoid situations likely to trigger you.
Write your trigger(s) down. Memorize them so when you're in such a situation, you're ready to do the following:
The moment anger starts, extricate yourself immediately. Your instant reaction is unavoidable but after that first moment, you've likely regained at least enough control to breathe and/or excuse yourself to “go to the bathroom.” Remind yourself how good you’ll feel if you respond as your best self would and how bad you’ll feel if you blow up. Remember also that expressing anger is more likely to engender defensiveness and hardening of the other person's position than to cause change. And your anger is less likely to be perceived as passion and commitment, and more that you’re a person to be dismissed.
Be aware of your hot buttons. For example, if you tend to get angry with malevolent or insufficiently dimensional statements made by overconfident people, that awareness can make you less likely to overreact, or at least motivate you to limit involvement with such people.
Find your personal motivation to control your anger: Perhaps your anger-proneness has hurt your professional or personal relationships enough that you're now motivated to try harder to control your anger. Or you’re afraid it will seriously hurt your health or that it could get you fired, lose your romantic partner, or get you ostracized from your family. Keeping your personal core motivation in mind can reduce your anger when a triggering event occurs.
Search for the positive. Is it worth trying to force yourself to look for the good in your life, the world, even in an annoying person? You’ll likely feel less bitter.
Are you actually angry at yourself? Sometimes, we think we’re angry at someone else but at core, we're angry with ourselves. If so, is there anything you want to try to improve about yourself?
If you know someone who is anger-prone. Even if a person rarely explodes, you can feel that they have latent anger bubbling. With such a person, it’s often wise to avoid criticizing them or trying to change their minds. It’s usually wiser to listen to them, ask questions of them, and if their liabilities outweigh their benefits to your life, to reduce or eliminate them from your life.
The takeaway
As usual, I don't expect all of these ideas to work for any individual, but might something in this post or the previous one that offered tips for addressing general unhappiness be worth a try?
I read this aloud on YouTube.
