The Danger in Anger
By: the Male Health Center
It seemed to make sense back in the late '70s: The Type-A guy was impatient, aggressive, and competitive, and this stressful approach to life ought to be hard on the heart. Unfortunately, such a simple explanation didn't hold up.
By the mid '80s, careful studies had demonstrated that Type-A men were at no more risk of heart attack than their laid-back brethren. In fact, it turned out that when they had heart attacks, they recovered more quickly.
A decade later, better explanations are beginning to emerge of how emotions and health are linked. And one key to personality's influence on heart disease may be in the expression of anger.
Several recent studies have shown that men who easily become hostile have four to five times greater risk of developing heart disease at an early age compared with men who can contain their rage.
How might hostility damage the heart?
The explanation may be bound up in the evolution of our species.
When faced with an intensely threatening situation, your body rapidly goes through physical changes designed to protect you. To increase your ability to either fight or flee, adrenaline kicks up your heart rate and output, and dilates blood vessels so that blood can surge to your muscles. At the same time, that blood thickens to lessen any bleeding.
These changes are just what you need in a life-and-death situation, but they're definitely not a good everyday habit. The stress on your circulatory system is extreme and may lead to damaged arteries.
Think about how you feel when you lose your temper. Being miffed is basically a mental experience. You may even become calmer as you think about what's bothering you. But when you blow up, it's almost entirely physical. Your pulse races, your face may flush, and you can't sit still.
This, some researchers think, is the physically damaging side of anger. If we're able to prevent displeasure from dropping off the deep end into open hostility, we can avoid the destructive effects.
Like any connection between mind and body, the link between anger and heart disease is difficult to prove. My hunch is that there is a connection but that it may be even more complicated than what we know today.
What I am sure of, however, is that there's little to lose and much to gain from reining in anger. For too long, we've accepted anger, even violence, as an especially male characteristic.
Any time we can postpone an outburst, we have a chance to weigh the situation rationally. Most of the time, we'll find that there's a much better way to solve the problem.
Overcoming Anger
Have you ever wondered why Greek theater included only comedies and tragedies? That's easy: Their plays were written by men—the gender that has a tough time admitting to emotion. We keep a stiff upper lip, so everything tends to be either copacetic or a calamity.
Sure, men have different styles of not expressing a variety of emotions. When something or someone gets on a man's nerves, he might get angry quickly. More likely, though, he'll seethe for a while before cutting loose in a big way. Still other men will never reach the point of expressing their anger; instead, they'll hide it—even from themselves.
In one sense, the choice between these styles doesn't matter. No matter which of these coping approaches a man's personality gives him, his health will suffer for it. When anger isn't dealt with by solving the problem, the body takes the punishment, too.
Men who face problems with hostility—expressed or not—see their blood pressure go sky high. Thus a regular diet of unsolved personal problems can lead to strokes and hardening of the arteries.
A tendency to direct anger outward goes after the circulatory system in another way, as well. Japanese researchers have found that they can predict with some accuracy which men will have the most plaque in their arteries by giving them personality tests for aggression.
An angry approach to life even affects the amount of life-giving oxygen a man's arteries can deliver to his heart during exercise. Performance can be affected, but more important, a prolonged oxygen deficit will lead to coronary artery disease.
So, how does a guy learn to deal with problems in a more healthful manner? The first and most significant step is to learn how to listen to others. Most really irritating situations arise from lack of communication, and it's only polite to offer the open door to your antagonist.
The next step in communicating is to work on explaining your frustration—but without an overtone of anger. Once you've offered yourself as a listener, you're more likely to face a receptive listener—especially if you can avoid accusing. Use the word "I" often and the word "you" very rarely, and you'll be off to a good start.
Once you've started talking about what bugs you, you'll probably find that everything isn't black and white, comedy or tragedy. Nowadays, we have romance, family adventures, stories of brotherly love. There's a big emotional world out there to be visited. Don't you miss it.