For most of us, common sense tells us that anger is not really good for us. To begin with, it just doesn’t feel good, and it makes us much less tolerable to be around. And of course, there are also the physical effects of anger, including elevated blood pressure and heart rate. But a new study reported by Reuters suggests that blowing your top is actually more dangerous than previously suspected.
The study, conducted by Dr. Rachel Lampert at Yale University in Connecticut demonstrates how the effects of anger can cause erratic heart rhythms that are potentially fatal in some cases.
Dr. Lampert designed to a study to test the detrimental effects of anger on the human body. Many previous studies had suggested that the heart can be particularly vulnerable to the affects of losing your cool, but the new Yale research demonstrated that dangerous arrhythmias can be brought on by angry outbursts, causing cardiac arrest and other serious problems.
Prior research has also indicated that societies living with a great deal of stress will also have an increased incidence of so-called “sudden death,” stemming from heart problems and hypertension. But as a society “mellows out,” the instances of these conditions become much less frequent.
In other words, the calmer a society is, the more healthy they tend to be.
For the Yale study, Dr. Lampert and her colleagues followed 62 patients, each sporting a heart defibrillator implant that can detect abnormal heart rhythms, and administer a controlled shock to the heart muscle if necessary to restore a normal healthy heartbeat.
Some of the patients participating in the study were known to have a history of arrhythmia, or at least be susceptible to the condition. But to test the effects of anger, Dr. Lampert devised an exercise that required each patient to recall a recent anger causing event while researchers measured the degree of electrical instability in the heart rhythm.
Controversially, the researchers purposely asked questions to encourage the patients to actively relive an angry outburst or episode. The results of the study indicated conclusively that anger increased so-called electrical instability in the heart rhythm of patients.
The second part of the study followed up with each patient over the course of three years and found that those with the greatest amount of electrical instabilities caused by anger were more likely to develop an arrhythmia, or other potentially fatal irregularities in the heart rhythm.
The results of the study seem to confirm that anger really does have a detrimental effect on the body, especially the heart. A new study devised by Dr. Lampert is already underway to determine if anger management techniques can help lower the risk of arrhythmia among at-risk heart patients.
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We all know anger is harmful to our health but it would have been nice if you talked about controlling anger rather than that discussion.
Comment by Charls — February 27, 2009 @ 3:32 am