April Fools’ Day is a day marked by pranks of varying degrees on friends, enemies, colleagues, and neighbors. While most April Fools’ Day pranks are taken in stride, there will always be a few that elicit very strong emotional reactions. Feelings of shame and embarrassment can, in some cases, lead to explosive outbursts of anger.

So what can you do to avoid becoming disheartened as a result of an embarrassing April Fools’ Day prank? As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Instead of waiting for a prank to happen, get yourself a stress shot before April Fools’ Day. By mentally preparing yourself for a potential stressor or anger trigger, you’ll be ready to handle whatever comes your way.

So take some time before April 1 to imagine some of the worst scenarios regarding possible pranks and rehearse your response. Then take a step back and analyze how you appear. Are you comfortable with your reaction? Do you think your answer will be well received by others? Will it result in greater understanding and empathy or could it make things worse? If in doubt, now is the time to modify your answer. Take this opportunity, while you are calm and relaxed, to prepare and practice how you will respond. Keep rehearsing and critically examining your own reaction until you feel good.

While your stress inoculation, if done correctly, should set you up well, there’s always the chance that an embarrassing prank will catch you off guard. In such a case, the emotional part of your brain will likely kick in before the thinking part, putting you at risk of overreacting and lashing out inappropriately. Therefore, in the heat of the moment, he will be more willing to act on impulse than to think things through about the consequences of his actions. Although he may be completely justified in how he feels, it is imperative that he find a way to allow the thinking part of his brain to catch up with the emotional part. Otherwise, you risk acting on your aggressive impulses and possibly saying or doing something you’ll later regret.

So the first thing to do is walk away from the situation and take a personal timeout. It’s amazing what even a few minutes can do to help clear your mind. Use your time wisely by working on your breath and trying to modify your thoughts. Take a deep breath into your abdomen and then pause before exhaling. Repeat this several times, and as your breathing slows down, you will notice that your mind and body begin to relax.

Greater relaxation can be achieved by replacing your angry thoughts or images with peaceful and calm thoughts. Use your imagination and let it take you back to a happy time in your life or to a calmer environment. Allow yourself to relive a proud moment from your childhood or visually experience the vacation of your dreams. Whether you’re hitting the game-winning home run in little league or lying on the most beautiful beach in the world, it’s extremely difficult to feel angry while feeling so at peace.

Another very powerful anger management technique is to change the internal conversation you have with yourself (also known as self-talk). It’s a very normal daily occurrence for people to have an internal dialogue that can make them more nervous (ie “if he looks at me the wrong way, I’m going to explode”) or put them in a state of alert. calm frame of mind (i.e. “Relax. Stay calm. I can get through this.”) The words we say to ourselves are very powerful and can definitely influence how we feel and how we behave afterwards.

Even saying a phrase like “Serenity Now,” popularized by Frank Costanza on the classic sitcom Seinfeld, can have a positive impact on how you feel. Since our emotions are influenced by our thoughts, any words that can conjure up peaceful images can put us in a better emotional frame of mind. Thus, by repeating a pleasant phrase or a mantra, we can go from feeling angry to feeling relaxed. The key is that relaxation and anger are incompatible emotions.

So, whether April Fool’s Day is coming up or you’re planning to get together with your prankster friends, give yourself a stress shot and don’t forget to bring your other anger management tools. After all, you never know when you might need them.