Reading time: 2 minutes – Spotted on New Scientist
Anger, a good outlet? Definitely not, according to New Scientist, which explains to us how bad it can be for your health. You don’t need to be pissed off for very long to start taking risks: according to science, eight minutes is enough.
As part of a study conducted at Columbia University in New York, a research team demonstrated that feeling anger could modify the functioning of blood vessels, which can have several consequences. These include an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, even in healthy people.
The experiments necessary to carry out the study were carried out on young adults who were apparently doing very well. Participants were asked to think about events in their past that may have made them angry, and then different actions were taken. Although none of the guinea pigs fortunately suffered a stroke or heart attack during the test, the scientists were in any case able to detect a change in the composition of their blood vessels.
Expressed or killed
As Daichi Shimbo, a cardiologist who co-led this study, said, the results show that strong emotions, particularly anger, can contribute to this type of crisis in people with fragile health. Other work carried out by his team on people who have had a heart attack indicates that during the hour preceding the event, they are twice as likely to have felt anger – or another form of anger. emotional overflow – than during the other hours of their life.
The experiment in question lasted only eight minutes, during which 280 subjects were subjected to tests provoking anger, anxiety or sadness in them, while measurements and samples were taken. The blood pressure figures indicate that the dilation of these individuals’ vessels was no longer the same when they felt angry. On the other hand, anxiety and sadness obviously had no effect.
Anger therefore has a particularly negative impact on the dilation of the vessels; but this is notably linked to a greater risk of heart attack. In the people who participated in the experiment, it took around forty minutes before the blood vessels returned to a normal state of dilation. An anger lasting a few moments can therefore have consequences for a fairly long period that follows.
It is the simple fact of feeling anger that increases the risks; whether you externalize it or keep it to yourself, the results are similar. The only way to prevent anger from having an impact on your health is to work on this feeling in advance in order to avoid, as far as possible, feeling it too often. This is obviously easier said than done, especially since society puts us to the test very regularly – if not constantly.
We recall that according to other experiences, venting one’s anger would in any case be of no use, since it would amount to “use gasoline to put out a fire”. But if you feel an urgent need to release your rage, don’t hesitate to write down the reasons for your resentment on a sheet of paper before throwing it in the trash: it seems that it feels good.
