Anger May Be Harming Your Health

David Silver, M.D., 70, of Boulder, Colo., is well aware of the toll that anger took on his body — and the benefits of becoming less reactive. “Anger gets triggered in me when I perceive injustice of any kind. If I see someone texting while driving, for example, it touches a core belief about my view of the world and how people should act. I get angry, and I can feel my grip on the wheel tighten, blood surges into my arms, and my stomach gets tight."

Born with atrial fibrillation (A-fib), an irregular or quivering heartbeat, Silver, a medical advocate, started to notice a connection between his temper and his incidences of the condition. “When my nervous system gets excited, my A-fib comes on. In my 60s I was getting more frequent episodes of A-fib — I was stressed-out and quick to anger. These days, after much work with the wounds the anger covered over, I am less angry and my A-fib is largely dormant."

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How do you know if you have an anger problem?

If your window of tolerance has become too small, you may find yourself less capable of coping with routine situations and stressors. Feeling especially irritable, lashing out at others or noticing a toll on close relationships can all be indications that your anger itself is cause for alarm, Brandt says.

To avoid letting anger mushroom into chronic illness, develop a relationship with your triggers. Notice how often you feel anger, how quickly it dissipates and how difficult it is for you to forgive — both others and yourself. “Anger management is actually a misnomer,” Brandt explains. “It should be called impulse management. The goal is not to avoid feeling angry but to identify the impulse that precedes anger and find productive ways of addressing it."

If you struggle to get a handle on hostility, here are a few ways to develop more mature, age-appropriate responses to the feeling.

• Mindfulness: The first thing to do when you are angry is to slow down, Brandt advises. This helps you create distance from the impulse so you can figure out what action to take. Shift your attention to your body and notice any sensations, like your face flushing or your heart beating more rapidly. Observe how your brain is responding with what may feel like a rush of thoughts or memories. Actively paying attention this way can help you hit pause — before you act out in a way you may regret.
• Movement: Exercise exerts a powerful effect on moods, and studies show that it can help prevent anger from building up as well as calm you down when rage hits you. So schedule some regular fitness activities to build up your defenses, and, if you're able, take a walk when you feel your temper flaring.
• Constructive communication: When anger arises, the trick is not to get hooked by the emotion. “Expressing anger in an angry way never works,” says Allan, who notes that retaliating in the moment only escalates conflict. Instead, he says, you should diffuse the anger in yourself, then learn to problem-solve with others to avoid it in the future. To counteract the tendency to justify your stance in such discussions, purposely say, “Maybe I'm wrong,” Allan suggests. Several studies show that anger reduces our ability to see things from other people's perspective.
• Therapy: Seeking out someone to talk to about the reasons you feel upset can help shift your internal suffering and the way you impose it on others. Addressing past trauma can be important but so, too, can recognizing how you were taught to handle — or not handle — anger as a child or adolescent. Learning to recognize any self-defeating negative thoughts that lie behind some flare-ups may also be helpful.
• Antidepressants: Drugs such as Prozac, Celexa and Zoloft are commonly prescribed for anger issues; their calming effect on the nervous system reduces the intensity of anger. “Half my patients are on some sort of psychotropic medicine that controls anxiety and anger,” Fisher says. “For many, but not all, they have had a dramatically positive effect."

One way to think of anger is that it offers you a warning sign, one that either signals imminent destruction or provides a wake-up call to become more flexible — at any age. “Learning from anger is as important as any dietary change you make for your heart,” says Silver. “People don't realize the extent of its damage."