Canadian researchers have found new evidence that how you express anger can affect your health, especially your heart.
''Everyone gets angry,'' says Michael MacGregor, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan. When people get angry, their blood pressure rises. He wanted to find out if the way people deal with anger affects how quickly their blood pressure returns to its normal, or baseline, level after an incident. He's still conducting his experiment, but preliminary results show that blood pressure returns to normal much more quickly in people who find constructive ways to resolve situations. It takes much longer in people who tend to blow up.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a significant risk factor in heart disease, Dr. MacGregor says, so learning how not to explode in rage may turn out to be as important in preventing heart problems as getting more exercising or cutting down on fatty foods. Experts say that most people experience anger a few times a week; one study found that angry episodes involve yelling or screaming almost 60 per cent of the time.
Dr. MacGregor didn't deliberately provoke people into a rage in his experiment, but used a more subtle approach toward measuring anger and hostility. Volunteers took part in a videotaped interview about how they deal with anger. They answered questions such as "How often to you feel irritated or angry at others?" and "What do you do when you feel irritated or angry at others?"
The interview started off casually, with lots of time to answer questions. But it quickly became more brisk and formal, with less time to respond.
Dr. MacGregor was able to glean information from the interviews in two ways. First there were volunteers' answers to the questions. Second, the interview tapes were watched later by "coders," who looked for physical signs of anger, frustration and hostility as the volunteers were given less time to answer the questions.
Those who did not show many visible signs of anger, and who told researchers they used constructive ways to deal with situations that make them angry (such as taking some of the blame and seeking to resolve a problem) were deemed to deal with anger constructively.
Those who looked angry on the tape and talked about repeatedly losing their temper were deemed to deal with anger in destructive ways.
Dr. MacGregor's graduate students monitored the blood pressure of the volunteers before, during, and for 18 minutes after their interviews. They found that those who dealt with anger constructively had a more rapid return to a normal reading after the stressful interview. Most of those who coped with anger in more destructive ways still had elevated blood pressure 18 minutes afterward.
So far, 165 volunteers have taken part in the experiment, which is financed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. MacGregor is hoping to interview as many as 400. In earlier work, he and his colleagues found that people who deal with anger constructively have a lower resting blood pressure than those who don't.
His latest results add to the growing body of evidence that being hot-tempered or hostile is bad for your heart.
A recent study published in the journal Circulation found that people most prone to anger were close to three times more likely to have a heart attack than people who didn't get angry as often.
Last year, a U.S. study found that anger and an inability to handle stress may be a significant risk factor for young men with a family history of heart problems. For them, hotheaded behaviour was more of a risk factor than high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes.
In 1998, a U.S. study found that women who lose their temper easily have a higher risk of getting heart disease than those who keep their emotions in check. It found that female hotheads, who physically or verbally vented their anger, had higher levels of the kind of cholesterol that has been linked to heart problems.
But that study also found that hostile people tended to have lifestyles that contributed to high cholesterol levels: they smoked or had high-calorie diets.
Keeping your cool
Many experts say that when people blow their top in an outburst of uncontrollable rage, their body responds physically. There is a surge of adrenaline, and their body frees up reserves of energy for intense physical activity, says Kathryn Jennings, who runs an anger-management counselling service in Toronto.
Here are a few tips from Ms. Jennings and other anger-management professionals about to how to keep from blowing up:
Know your anger. Understand the physical signs that lead up to losing your temper, like a racing pulse or a hot face.
When you feel those signs, take a break, remove yourself from the situation, and do something physical to release the sudden burst of energy.
Understand that hunger and fatigue can make it easier to lose your cool, as can too much caffeine. Someone who hasn't eaten all day but has had nine or 10 coffees is more likely to experience road rage on the drive home.
Anne McIlroy