There have been a number of studies over the years describing the relationship between emotions and physical illness. Simply put, it is impossible to separate our emotional and physical selves; over the years, this has come to be referred to as the mind-body connection.
Therefore it is not surprising that one of our more powerful emotions, anger, has been associated with physical disease. For the most part, it has come to be understood that both stifled anger and high levels of anger are risk factors for coronary heart disease, or heart attack.
In a study published earlier this year in the American Heart Journal, authors Davidson and Mostofsky looked not only at anger, but at various types of anger. Specifically, they found that different kinds of anger impart different levels of CHD risk. In other words, it’s not so much that one is angry, it’s how that anger is expressed that seems to matter.
For the purposes of the study, anger was classified as being either constructive anger (when anger is discussed as part of a problem-solving process), destructive anger justification (blaming others for one’s own angry feelings), or destructive anger rumination (brooding angrily over some event and “holding it in”). In the former expression of anger, it tends to be resolved and “worked out” as part of a process of conflict resolution. In the latter two subtypes, one’s anger only becomes intensified.
Not surprisingly, the researchers found that the risk of CHD was decreased in constructive anger relative to the other two subtypes (unfortunately, the effect was not gender-neutral; it was seen only in men).
This does not mean that anger is necessarily good for the heart; it simply means that (in men) there is less risk of CHD if it is expressed constructively.
I cannot provide a link to the full AHJ article; click here for the abstract.
