In life, it's hard not to get angry.
Tutoring homework, taking the blame for others, and getting stuck in traffic...... All kinds of trivial things happen from time to time, and people can't help but lose their temper every once in a while.
But after reading today's article, I have to be a little more angry in the future.
A recent study published in the prestigious journal American Heart Association (JAHA) tells us [1] how anger can damage the cardiovascular system over time.
Image source: Screenshot of the document
Dr. Daichi Shimbo, a cardiologist and leader of the study, said, "If you're someone who gets angry a lot, then your blood vessels are chronically damaged."
Anger is really not an empty word.
If you get angry for 8 minutes, you can hurt your blood vessels
The investigators recruited 280 healthy adults, with a mean age of 26 years, who did not smoke, take drugs, or have mood disorders.
If we want to observe the changes in blood vessels under different emotions, we must first have different emotions.
These people were randomly divided into four groups:
😡 Angry group
😰 Anxiety group
😢 Grief group
😳 Neutral mood group (as control)
Then, the researchers had to do something — "find a way" to elicit different emotions in them.
😡 Angry group: Think about and talk about experiences that made people angry.
Image source: Adapted from online images
😰 Anxiety group: Think about and talk about experiences that make you anxious.
Image source: Adapted from online images
😢 Grief group: Read the text that triggers grief.
Image source: Adapted from online images
😳 Neutral group: Count aloud, from 1 to 100, and keep looping.
(I'll be angry if it's me!) ）
Image source: Adapted from online images
(In case anyone doesn't know, I made up the pictures.)
）
The above emotionally stimulating tasks last for a total of 8 minutes.
At the end of the task, the researchers confirmed the success of the emotion stimulation through laboratory means, achieving their desired effect. ✅
Next, it's time to check the health of the participants' blood vessels.
It was found that anger led to a significant change in reactive congestion scores within 40 minutes compared to neutral emotion.
This means that anger damages endothelial cells, affecting endothelium-dependent vasodilation, which in turn affects vascular health.
Other negative emotions, such as sadness and anxiety, have no similar effect.
In other words, just 8 minutes of anger can continue to damage blood vessels for the next 40 minutes.
Ah this, is there any anger in life that is less than 8 minutes? 🤔
Moreover, in the experiment, it is only a recollection of the past, and when you encounter something that makes people angry in reality, the anger is estimated to be more violent and higher. 🤬
Dr. Shimbo said,
"Over time, these chronic injuries can have irreversible effects on vascular health and ultimately increase the risk of heart disease."
What's even more embarrassing is that the subjects in this study are all healthy, relatively young people, and the impact of anger for a short time is so great, and if there are three highs or underlying cardiovascular diseases, it will be even more serious.
In short, the damage of anger to the body cannot be underestimated!
Angry, sad and hurtful
The damage of anger to the human body is not only accumulative, but also may trigger some acute, life-threatening events, which I believe many people have heard of or even experienced.
Image source: Weibo hot search
Anger is a trigger for various cardiovascular events, increasing the risk of stroke, arrhythmias, heart attacks, and more.
A meta-analysis in the European Heart Journal [2] showed a 3.62-fold increased risk of ischemic stroke and a 4.74-fold higher risk of myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndrome within 2 hours of an outburst of anger.
Even in moderate anger, the risk of ventricular fibrillation is 3.2 times higher, and intense anger is 16.7 times higher!
Increase in the number of coronary heart disease at different frequency and severity of anger (per 10,000 people)
Image source: Ref. 2
Another cohort study of nearly 50,000 people[3] was followed for 9 years and found that people who were constantly angry had a 23% increased risk of cardiovascular death, 16% for atrial fibrillation and 19% for heart failure.
Anger is not only harmful to the cardiovascular system, but also systemic to it.
It can not only induce skin problems such as urticaria, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis, but also damage the brain, reduce the number of nerve cell connections, reduce memory, and make people more prone to anxiety and insomnia.
Long-term sulking can also affect the endocrine, change the secretion of cortisol, affect immunity, sex hormone secretion, and lead to menstrual irregularities and other problems.
Anger itself is a normal emotion that can give us motivation and help push us to overcome difficulties and solve problems.
However, "anger" does hurt the body, whether it is a one-time outburst, or a long-term anger or "sulking", it is not good for the body.
Image Credit: Please Answer 1988
Don't be angry, for yourself
There's an old saying that gets angry is about punishing yourself for someone else's mistakes.
When you are angry, you should resolve and channel it in time, and don't let your anger jump up and down in your body and howl everywhere.
Here are a few relatively scientific and useful methods.
1. Write down angry things on paper and tear them up
It sounds outrageous, but it really works, the kind that has been proven to work by rigorous scientific experiments. [4]
This action is equivalent to "materializing" the anger emotion, separating it from the body, and then disposing of it.
Be careful, be sure to tear it off, or put it in a paper shredder. If you just write it down and put it away, it's not very useful.
2. Do activities that calm you
When you are angry, doing things that "reduce nervous excitability" can help calm your emotions [5], such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing, and gradual muscle relaxation. 🧘♀️
Even studies have found that simply counting from 1 to 10 gives you good temper control. You can consciously explore techniques to calm yourself.
Venting emotions and resorting to violence doesn't help, because it makes the nerves more excitatory and even makes people more angry.
3. Cognitive change, "deconstruction" of negative emotions
Things that make people angry objectively exist, but whether they can arouse anger or not is up to them to some extent.
It's like you create a brain circuit in your brain, and things go around in your head and then disappear.
"Emotional stability" is a worthwhile goal, ostensibly for altruism, but essentially to protect our own bodies from harm.
How? Let's start by giving yourself positive psychological cues! This includes, but is not limited
1) Play music that calms your mind
Image source: NetEase Cloud Music
2) Change your profile picture and wallpaper to calm your mind
Image source: Do it yourself
Fourth, finally, there is an ultimate law -
Stay away from things and people that make you angry
This article is reviewed by experts
Planning and production
策划:Deanna | 监制:Feidi
Illustration: See annotation | Cover image source: Zhan Ku Hailuo
bibliography
[1] Shimbo D, Cohen MT, McGoldrick M, Ensari I, Diaz KM, Fu J, Duran AT, Zhao S, Suls JM, Burg MM, Chaplin WF. Translational Research of the Acute Effects of Negative Emotions on Vascular Endothelial Health: Findings From a Randomized Controlled Study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2024 May 7; 13(9):e032698. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.123.032698. Epub 2024 May 1. PMID: 38690710.
[2] Mostofsky, Elizabeth et al. “Outbursts of anger as a trigger of acute cardiovascular events: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” European heart journal vol. 35,21 (2014): 1404-10. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehu033
[3] Titova, Olga E et al. “Anger frequency and risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.” European heart journal open vol. 2,4 oeac050. 6 Aug. 2022, doi:10.1093/ehjopen/oeac050
[4] Kanaya, Y., Kawai, N. Anger is eliminated with the disposal of a paper written because of provocation. Sci Rep 14, 7490 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-57916-z
[5] Titova, Olga E et al. “Anger frequency and risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.” European heart journal open vol. 2,4 oeac050. 6 Aug. 2022, doi:10.1093/ehjopen/oeac050