Anger can be an all-consuming emotion. It can make it difficult to think rationally and cause you to say or do something you’ll quickly regret. You already know this because of course you do. We all do. But that doesn’t make it any less important to recognize.

“When we get mad or frustrated, it might be easy to think through and process incoming information and output something decent for others to understand us,” says Jacob Kountz an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Bakersfield, CA “But, when we’re angry, this is an intensified version of softer emotions which can put us in a place where we don’t really know what to say anymore.”

One of the more helpful ways of dealing with anger is to take a beat and give yourself time to cool off. An important — and often overlooked — step is to communicate this need to someone in the moment. Especially yourself. So how do you do it? With care and practice.