The power of anger can break the heart

If the heart were to be likened to a badly behaved child, the main traits the person would suffer from would be anger and hostility besides a host of other habits like smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, obesity etc! It’s a known fact that negative emotions, primarily in the form of anger and hostility are bad for the health in general and the heart in particular. Anger can break the heart literally and metaphorically.
Conceived in the head, these traits gnaw away at the heart, for the heart and mind cannot be separated. The two cross-talk through a process of chemical conversations with health of one affecting the health of the other and vice-versa.
These chemicals are essentially stress hormones like adrenaline, noradrenaline and other harmful mediators like inflammation, which play an important role in the deposition of cholesterol in the arteries of the body, a process called atherosclerosis. And this damage is not limited to the heart.
Research has shown that people considered the least agreeable and the most antagonistic were at a 40 per cent increased risk for arterial wall thickening all across the body. As an oriental saying goes, “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”
The harmful stress hormones, adrenaline and nor-adrenaline increase the heart rate, the blood pressure and the breathing rate and produce a sugar deficiency that makes an angry person’s blood tend to clot. Long term hormonal imbalances affect the body’s immune system too and chronically angry people frequently battle colds and flu, asthma, arthritis and a flair up of skin disorders. They also try to find a substitute for their unhappiness by over-eating, smoking and drinking too much alcohol and are prone to depression, which may trigger even more angry responses.
Simply put, if you are a healthy person and anger and hostility form a staple of your persona, there is a 19 per cent more chance of your getting an illness of the likes of angina, a heart attack and stroke, than if you were calm and content!
Recent research has also shown that men, who bottle up frustration at the work place, covertly coping with it, are twice as likely to have a heart attack as men who express their feelings openly. Angry older men, as stereotypes go, are most vulnerable but excessive ire can take a toll at any age. Hotheads are six times more likely to suffer heart attacks as compared to their cooler counterparts.
Anger comes in many forms: annoyance, irritability, frustration, vexation, resentment, animosity, ire, indignation, wrath, rage, hostility, violence, depression, cynical behaviour… the list can go on endlessly.
The ill effects may creep in surreptitiously and one may not know till a very late stage and therefore preventive stress management especially the role of regular exercise and diet besides other stress relief measures like yoga, transcendental meditation and prayers cannot be over emphasised.
Counselling sessions with psychologists are very much in order and psychologists should not be taken as doctors who deal with ‘loony’ people but who are a very integral and essential part of the maintenance of the sanity of healthy people. However, this dawning seems to be lacking even in the medical profession. Amongst the advice dished out by doctors to patients, the admonition to “bring down stress levels” often comes as an afterthought, “See you after two weeks, Mr Singh. Oh, and do bring down your stress levels and try not to get angry at trifles...” This in fact should be our primary ‘mantra’ for health.
The writer is CEO and Chief Cardiac Surgeon, National Heart Institute, New Delhi
Source: The Asian Age