By Ewurama Agyapomaa Mackay (UniMAC-IJ-Faculty of Journalism, Ewuramamackay01@gmail.com)
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said ” for every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind
New research has also shown that, repeated episodes of rage are associated with the increase of cardiovascular diseases.
Meanwhile a study, published on May 1 2024, in the journal by the American Heart Association (JAHA), revealed that intense anger contributes to the risk of having heart attack.
It is further speculated that “repeated episodes of negative emotion” may eventually cause damage to blood vessels that will result in long-term CVD risk, either alone or in combination with other risk factors.
The research, funded by the National Institute of Health, was conducted by researchers from Columbia University in New York. They found that strong negative emotions affect the endothelial cells – a lining in the blood vessel, vital for proper circulation from the bloodstream to other tissues. The team recruited 280 healthy adults and divided them into four groups, each performing specific tasks within eight minutes.
The first and second groups were asked to recall an event that triggered anger and anxiety within themselves, the third group was asked to read sentences to make them feel sad and the last group was asked to count from 1 to 100 and to keep their feelings neutral for the next eight minutes.
After the tasks, the blood vessels were checked after 3, 40, 70 and 100 minutes respectively. The findings revealed that the blood cells could not widen to enable proper blood flow in the body until after 40 minutes, which shows the negative impact of anger on endothelial functions compared to the neutral group. Anxiety and sadness did not have much effect on the blood vessels.
A news release from NIH states that Daichi Shimbo, the lead author of the research, a cardiologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City explained, “If you are a person who gets angry all the time, you are causing chronic injuries to your blood vessel. These chronic injuries over time may eventually cause irreversible effects on vascular health and eventually increase your heart disease risk”.
Some common treatments to calm anger issues include, breathing exercises, cognitive-behavioural therapy or you can listen to music. Feeling angry is not deadly but the constant feeling of anger is what causes harm to our well-being.
