Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.
If you are a human, it is almost impossible never to get angry at all. Many situations and people can throw you off guard and make you feel stress, resulting in anger even. We hear most people around us schooling us about how bad anger can be for our overall development. It’s true, of course. However, when anger is dealt with maturely, it can even be productive and induce rational thinking. The problem arises when one cannot figure out the way to let all that anger go. When feelings, thoughts, emotions, stress, and anger are all pent up inside a person’s mind, heart, and soul, that is when the real problem starts.
If you think closely about it, who is the one who loses the most from anger? Is it the one you got angry with, or is it you, yourself? Whether you are expressing your anger out loud or keeping it bundled inside, the loss is yours. Bottled-up anger can destroy your relationships and affect your entire thinking process. Let’s talk about how harmful can hold your anger be for you!
7 Harmful effects of holding your anger
Here are the most significant adverse effects of holding your anger:
1. Heart risk
Your heart is a delicate organ. Emotions as strong as anger can cause great harm to it. Research shows that when you have an angry outburst, the chances of you getting a heart attack doubles. Repressing your anger for far too long can be the beginning of your journey into the world of heart diseases and problems.
The only solution to this is to learn to manage your anger more constructively. Identify your triggers and work on them. Consider addressing the problem at hand than just getting angry and keep it inside you!
2. Anger weakens your immune system
If you are a person who always has anger lingering around him/her, you can be prepared to find yourself falling sick more often than not. In one study, the researchers from Harward University found that when healthy people recall an unpleasant incident from their past, the level of their antibody- Immunoglobulin A saw a six-hour dip! Immunoglobulin A is responsible for fighting against infection in your body!
If you want to keep yourself happy and healthy and not fall sick often, try to adapt particular anger coping strategies!
3. Anger can heighten your anxiety issues
People who worry often experience both anxiety and rage at the same time. One of the studies published in the journal Cognitive Behavior Therapy indicated that anger could aggravate the symptoms of a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). GAD is a condition where a person is troubled with an excessive and uncontrollable concern in his daily life. Apart from having higher levels of hostility, patients with GAD also had more severe GAD symptoms due to hostility and internalized, unexpressed rage.
Anxiety is dangerous and could be the stepping stone to a lifetime of anxiety issues. Hence, it becomes vital to pay heed to this as soon as possible and learn to let out your emotions constructively. Self-introspection, when you are calm, can help. Take some time out for yourself, preferably early morning, and meditate. Practice deep breathing and think deeply about the causes that make you angry and your responses to those causes.
4. Holding anger can increase chances of stroke
Be on the lookout if you have a tendency to lash out. According to one study, the chance of suffering a stroke increases threefold in the two hours following an angry outburst due to a blood clot in the brain or internal bleeding in the brain. Six times as many people had aneurysms in one of the brain’s main arteries when they were upset, compared to those who didn’t become angry.
5. Bottled up anger can also hurt your lungs
Smoking isn’t your thing? Well, it turns out smoking is not the only thing that could harm your lungs. If you are always angry or hostile, you could be unknowingly giving your lungs a hard time.
Researchers reviewed the medical records of 670 men ranging in age from 45 to 86. First, they used a scale from 1 to 37 to measure each man’s level of rage and hatred. Then, over the course of eight years, they took three distinct lung function measurements to see how much air could be expelled in a second.
Anger and hostility were associated with lower lung function at the onset, and this relationship worsened with each subsequent evaluation of these males. Thorax researchers found that their findings stayed up even after accounting for other variables like smoking and education.
6. It can also lead to depression
When you suppress your anger for long periods of time, you pile up many more emotions along with it. This affects your overall attitude towards life and your behavior as well. Your mind subconsciously keeps remembering all those reasons why you got angry, and before you realize it, you are already falling into a bottomless pit. As a result of all of this, you can see your relationships affected by your behavior and many other issues like headaches, skin disorders, high blood pressure, sleep disorders, and even digestive problems.
7. Suppressing anger shortens your life
Haven’t we all heard of the famous saying, “Happier people live longer?” Perhaps, that is the truest saying there is. If you really sit and think about it, life is unpredictable and, anyway, too short. Why waste it by being angry and hostile?
Anger, if not channeled in the right direction, could ruin not just your life but also the lives of those who are close to you and those who worry about you! Hence, it is crucial to feel every emotion and find the proper care that it needs! Of course, the journey won’t be easy, but all the struggles in the journey will make you a balanced individual in life!
