Anger and Heart Disease
This is an interesting article about anger and heart disease. It
describes how anger causes heart disease and exacerbates the effects
of those already inflicted
The Destructive Aspects of Anger
by: Newton Hightower
"We are here to encounter the most outrageous, brutal, dangerous
and intractable of all passions; the most loathsome and unmannerly;
nay, the most ridiculous too; and the subduing of this monster will
do a great deal toward the establishment of human peace." Seneca,
Roman philosopher, 50 AD
Anger and Heart Disease - Anger Causes a Bodily Reaction
Your sympathetic nervous system and muscles mobilize for physical
attack. Your muscles tense and your blood pressure and heart rate
skyrocket. Your digestive processes stop. Certain brain centers
are triggered, which then change your brain chemistry. When you
are angry, your bodily functions change for the worse.
Dr. Charles Cole, Colorado State University, found that the physiological
effects of anger can cause blood vessels to constrict,
increase heart rate and blood pressure, and eventually lead
to the destruction of heart muscle.
After studying the reactions to stress and anger in more than 800
patients, Dr. Cole concluded that every thought has a physiological
consequence. Looking at the effects of anger, Dr. Leo Maddow, chairman
of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University
of Pennsylvania, observed that brain hemorrhages are usually caused
by a combination of hypertension and cerebral arteriosclerosis.
He found that anger can produce the hypertension which explodes
the diseased cerebral artery, resulting in a stroke.
Not only does anger produce physical symptoms ranging from headaches
to hemorrhoids, it can also seriously aggravate already existing
physical illnesses. "Someone who stays angry long after the particular
incident that caused the anger may be committing slow suicide."
Each episode of anger or hostility sets off a physiological response
in your body causing your heart to beat faster, your blood pressure
to rise, your coronary arteries to narrow, and your blood to become
thicker. When the blood becomes thicker, the heart has to work harder
to pump it.
For people with heart disease, this reaction can reduce
blood flow to the heart, creating a potentially fatal condition.
Anger and Heart Disease a Study
A study done by Dr. Ichiro Kawachi, of the Harvard School of Public
Health, examined about 1,300 older men (average age of 62) over
a seven-year period. Dr. Kawachi found that those men with the highest
levels of anger were three times more likely to develop heart disease
than men with the lowest levels of anger.
Other researchers at Union Memorial Hospital and Loyola College
of Maryland in Baltimore interviewed 41 patients who just had angioplasties
to unclog arteries. Those who scored highest in hostility (Hostile
Type A) were 2.5 times more likely to need repeat angioplasty within
the year.
Furthermore, contrary to the common advice from friends and therapists
to "get it all out" when angry, verbally berating partners or expressing
hostility towards other people only serves to compromise physical
health.
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