Is There a More Intelligent Way to Dealing With Situations?

When i'm irritated or upset, rather than my automatic reaction of lling or shutting down, what should i do, instead. I tend to lose it, so to speak, before there is awareness. But when there's awareness in you, then out of the awareness a more intelligent way, a non des functional way of dealing with situations arises. What that is varies from situation to situation. You need to cultivate presens in non challenging situations so that you can sustain presents when the challenges come and as you know, they keep coming.