Since antiquity, our ancestors have shown awareness of the harmful effects of anger. In Buddhism, anger is seen as worst of the Three Poisons of the mind. Roman philosopher, Seneca thought that “no plague has cost the human race more dear” than anger, citing historic leaders committing atrocities in blind fury as example.
Well, tales are tales. While not arguing about the historical facts here, one thing is certain: our ancestors are telling us something about the devastating effects of anger. Were they right?
Indeed, we have always known how anger can seriously affect people. These intense emotions often lead to physical and verbal hostility toward others, and manifestations of anger can have significant, negative impacts on people’s lives and of those around them.
Today, studies in behavioral medicine found a direct impact on cardiovascular diseases through our sympathetic nervous system. Basically, the release of stress hormones can lead to an avalanche of physical reactions, which in turn can cause serious heart diseases in the long run.
What triggers our anger?
Psychologists describe anger as a basic human emotion that is often triggered by a social matter that is judged unfair. Being unfairly treated, physically or verbally assaulted, or being interrupted in a goal that we are pursuing, for example, can all trigger anger in a person.
Anger can also be associated with other mental disturbances, such as pain, anxiety, jealousy, depression and stress.
It may not be considered a positive emotion, but it is an important one, according to Celia Richardson, the co-author of Fundamental Facts about Mental Health 2015. To Richardson, anger is an emotion that gives us the strength and motivation to act, and to find solutions to our problems.
Everyone reacts to anger, both physically and behaviorally, and it is considered a healthy reaction. When the reaction gets out of hand, however, that’s when things turn sour.
Anger is a fight-or-flight reaction
Forget the Avengers, most people don’t turn into the Hulk when they’re angry. Not immediately anyway.
In real life, when a person gets angry or anxious, the heart starts to beat faster, the muscles tighten, the breathing becomes faster and heavier, and sweat begins to break out. You can’t think straight, blood is rushing through your brain, your senses are heightened, and if you’re engaged in an argument, you struggle not to word vomit, saying things that you know you will regret later.
Sound familiar?
Anger affects the heart
The sympathetic nervous system, part of your automatic nervous system (ANS), is responsible for regulating your physical reactions to stressful events. Whether it’s the threat of being attacked, worry that ensue being pulled over by the police or when you are angered by a conflict, your physical reactions are the same.
Your ANS responds to these stressful events by triggering the fight-or-flight responses, pumping adrenaline to gear your body ready into action. The brain identifies distress as a signal that something is not right out there, and you need to address the problem as soon as possible.
Perhaps this is why Richardson considers that anger is an important emotion, if not a normal and healthy one. We are all born with the ability of taking an action whenever the situation calls for it, but we are not meant to sustain these physical reactions over long periods of time. Studies have found that heightened cardiovascular reactivity is closely associated with hypertension, coronary calcification, and many other coronary heart diseases (CHD).
A meta-analysis of 20 studies that included nearly 250,000 participants over an average of 11 years also concluded that physical reactions of anxiety increases the risk of cardiac death by 48%.
Not simply a matter of the heart
Some researchers have found that people often react negatively to anger and anxiety with bad health behaviors, like binge drinking, smoking and overeating. While the first two can potentially lead to cancer, the last bit is directly linked to obesity.
The prolonged activation of the fight-or-flight response brings our body to have an inflammatory response that affects the body’s insulin sensitivity, an alteration that experts suspect triggers type 2 diabetes with obesity.
Not to mention angry driving is also a dangerous matter. Spanish researchers found in a simulator study that angry driving is strongly associated with crash-related conditions: the driver is prone to losing control of the vehicle, losing concentration on the road and eventually crashing the vehicle.
Expressions of anger
By all means, all the talk about the negative effects of anger does not mean that it should be suppressed. Expressing anger in a healthy way, researchers suggest, is actually beneficial to a person’s well-being.
Healthy expression of anger?
Dr. Staicu of University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, thinks that anger can be expressed in three ways:
To motivate constructive ways to solve a problem;
Expression motivated by nonconstructive reasons to justify someone’s feelings or;
To intensify someone’s anger.
It goes without saying which one of the three is the correct answer. But how do we get there? Not everyone is able to respond calmly when they are in a state of fury.
While we can’t control external factors, we can take physical actions to help our body deal with the stress. Some take yoga classes, others seek sanctuary in meditation, and some find comfort in quick exercises like a quick jog by the lake or participate in sports.
Other researchers suggest self-regulation, a mechanism defined in psychology as the capacity to control frustration and self-soothe when facing a stressful event.
Persons with effective self-regulation skills are able to concentrate more easily on finding a solution rather than focusing on a conflict or a negative emotion linked to the problem at hand. According to researchers, self-regulation skills are often acquired during infancy, when the child learns to control their own behavior and ways to express their emotions.
If you are one of the “hot blooded ones”, there are still techniques that you can learn to quickly calm yourself down in a difficult situation.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School suggests a technique known as the relaxation response. With time and practice, you can train yourself to develop resilience and mental flexibility towards stress and conflict.
The technique trains the body to pacify the physical responses – fast heartbeat, quickened breaths, blood rush – and reach a state of calm before tackling the problem with a cool head.
Being angry is one of the most human things we can do. Just don’t take things too much to heart, and for once, the words “be cool” can actually save relationships, or trips to the doctor’s office down the road. After all, when you anger someone, you’re breaking a heart, literally.