Anger Does a Lot More Damage to Your Body Than You Realize | Hacker News Reader

Anger Does a Lot More Damage to Your Body Than You Realize

wsj.com

118 pointselsewhen126 comments

Share link (unpaywalled): https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/anger-health-effects-ris...

Study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.123.032698

Apple News is another way to access this article without paying for a full WSJ subscription.

Is there a non-Apple way to do this? It seems natural for Google news to step in here, but somehow Google News just keeps finding ways to get worse. I stopped using it when it kept showing me the same fake news shady WordPress blogs hosted out of Brazil attempting to impersonate US news outlets. Super weird phenomenon.

I remember reading that Apple’s podcast platform doesn’t bring in much revenue, but they continue to maintain and improve it because of the valuable UX it gives its customers. I wonder if Apple News is the same?

In Google’s defense, most companies besides Apple don’t care about UX if it doesn’t directly affect quarterly revenues.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family, I had a lot of anger that stole away parts of my life. Anger wasn't alone at fault, but surely a demon that was there. One thing that hit me hard, while I was already on my healing journey was a saying at a monastery:

"You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

This saying is supposed to be from Buddha's teachings. I remember having an immediate talk with my friend, almost breaking down, thinking about all the years behind that I have been trying to tame this.

that's simply because we live in societies that punish anger, instead of treating it like we treat any other emotion.

"You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

bu also: "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished for making other people angry too."

EDIT: proof is if I say anger is normal, it's not good or bad it's just part of what we are, it's simply that our societies that are based on the fiction of the merciful god - especially in the US - have decided to treat it like a bug in the system, there are some fluctuations in the votes that this comment receives.

If I said the same thing about sadness or fear or joy or surprise, nobody would have found it controversial.

Even though sadness kills a lot of people every year (and fear makes people angry, many angry people are simply scared).

Punish anger? A lot of people make a career out of anger, even if it sometimes appears to be simulated.

Similar to “puritanical” suppression of sexuality in the US general population, people who make a living out of anger are literally making anger porn.

punish here means it is widely considered a bad trait, that must be expelled, like a demonic possession. If you are angry, there's something wrong with you, it can't possibly be that there are often times good reasons to be angry.

Anger plays a big role in what we humans are, just like fear, sadness or joy.

> A lot of people make a career out of anger

A lot of people make careers out of being good at killing or at criminal behavior in general, doesn't mean that societies encourage it.

The root cause of anger is fear.

correct!

I wrote in the edit of the original comment (and fear makes people angry, many angry people are simply scared)

Yet nobody thinks that fear is bad or should be eradicated from society or you should take fear management classes if you're scared.

Sure, some people make a career out of it. Radio hosts (now mostly moving online). But they're the "safe outlet" for people to listen to who do not get to express anger themselves because of punishment. The last 3 or 4 years we've even seen the creation of new slang to punish angry people ("Karens"). Police are ever more ready to truly, in the proper sense of the word, punish those who are doing little more than just being angry.

I would think that if we could easily quantify anger, then measure protests over the years, we'd discover that as time goes on they get less angry. Hell, some of them today seem almost depressed and despondent.

Maybe punishing anger is a good thing. But we shouldn't pretend we're not doing it.

On the other hand, this kind of teaching was very destructive to me: I was taught it was shameful to be angry, and my main religious experience was with Buddhism, which says anger is always purely bad. Of course everyone has anger, and so did I, but because I was shameful of feeling it I just expressed it back on myself as intense depression and self loathing

There are two sides to every teaching. The Buddhas teaching may be touted as universal by the doctrine of the teaching itself, but for me it was destructive. Though as always I await a chorus of followers to tell me I was “doing it wrong”

I don't get very angry generally, but this is something that I consider a mild fault. There are some things and situations where the appropriate thing is to be angry (injustice, harming innocents, etc). Of course, many people let their anger push them to behave badly, but the anger itself can be appropriate and can even help you take actions that need to be taken. From the Christian tradition, Psalms 4:4 is sometimes translated "In your anger, do not sin". Anger by itself is not necessarily sin, but what people do with their anger often is.

Anger doesn't really come natural to me, so I get very confused when others fail to control their anger. I do get frustrated, which seems different to me. That is something I can now easily deal with, after learning about children and emotion. Most of the time it's down to "broken cookie syndrome", i.e. children breaking down in tears do to a cookie breaking in half. It's rarely about the cookie, it's something else and the cookie is just the straw that broke the camels back.

Always thinking "broken cookie" when frustrations bubble up makes it a lot easier to not lash out at people around you and instead address the underlying issues.

I totally agree. My therapist taught me that sometimes we need to be angry, or at least seem angry, when someone does something wrong, an injustice as you point out. I’m not sure why people have come to the conclusion that certain emotions must be entirely avoided

> I’m not sure why people have come to the conclusion that certain emotions must be entirely avoided

I don't think "avoided" is the right term for these teachings, but the emotion itself is generally not fruitful, particularly since it urges you to dwell on it. Injustice should be addressed because it's unjust, not because you're angry at the injustice. What does the anger add to the equation? Maybe motivation? Maybe it's important to explore why the injustice by itself is not sufficiently motivating.

> What does the anger add to the equation? Maybe motivation?

Anger draws attention toward what’s important - for both ourselves and others. It says “hey! Something isn’t right here, and letting it slide wouldn’t feel right!”. It is a constant voice reminding you what you love and what you would sacrifice for that love.

There’s a lot of talk in certain communities about boundary setting. But I see boundaries as a natural part of the domain of anger. Boundaries are only hard to set if you either don’t hear your own anger internally, or don’t let that anger be expressed into the world.

It sounds like you're saying people need anger when they haven't spent time reflecting on what's important in life. If you already know what's important because you've done that reflection, of what use is the anger?

Is that a real thing, that people discover that they know everything there is to know about themselves and their desires, and they’re just “done”? I’m turning 40 soon, and I feel like I have more unanswered questions about myself with each passing year. It feels like life is constantly passing me new situations to navigate. My anger is often the first part of me to notice when I’m missing something important.

Even if you know what matters to you, anger can still be a wonderful tool to communicate your desires and intentions to others. If a homeless person starts creeping on to my partner in the street, I’d almost certainly reach for anger when I tell them that they need to cut that out. It’s a powerful, direct way to speak straight from my lizard brain to theirs. Seems ridiculous to take that tool out of your toolbox.

As with most things in life, there's an appropriate balance somewhere. People tend to say anger = bad because we have mostly experienced inappropriate anger on one extreme and have found that it isn't healthy for you.

I agree. It feels very immature to me. Dogs seem to experience anger like we do, so anger must come from a common ancestor. That makes it older than humanity itself. I think it’s obvious evolution would have ditched it a long time ago if it wasn’t serving us in some deep and complex ways. And that feels right - whenever I feel angry, something I care about is being ignored. My anger clearly wants to protect and care for me and the people I love. Why would I banish it?

Childish anger has an untamed destructive element. But the answer is to let anger grow and mature with the rest of your psyche. Not banish it and pretend it doesn’t exist. If you banish your anger, how could it possibly mature?

I think the purpose of anger is to weed out anti-social behaviors. If an animal is constantly bothering those in its pack, anger is a mechanism to punish them so their bothersome genes or memes don't propagate.

> I was taught it was shameful to be angry, and my main religious experience was with Buddhism, which says anger is always purely bad.

Sorry to hear that you encountered buddhist practitioners who made you think that. Don't think shame is part of buddhist teaching. However, this kind of techniques quite common across all religious zealots, buddhist or not.

I don't think you meant to invalidate their experience, but that's how I feel when I've been told similar stuff like, "sorry you went through that ... it's not actually part of the religion ... and all religions are like that anyway." Zealots are often that way because they're more orthodox/literal with their religion, and anyways, why is your interpretation of a religion more accurate than theirs?

I predicted this response quite well

I had a similar experience. It's a strange and surreal form of gaslighting when family members make you angry and then subsequently make you to feel ashamed for becoming angry.

Anger, just like any other human emotion is neither good nor bad. Prescribing a human emotion as good and another human emotion as bad takes a certain degree of self righteousness. After some growing up, I've since learned to try and let my emotions guide me rather than run away from them and that's made all of the difference.

Buddhism is not just the subject matter and the students, your teachers can also fail.

As I understand it, anger is wrong just as pain is wrong in that it’s a sign that something is wrong. Touch a hot object and you instinctively know it was a bad idea, but anger doesn’t come with the same innate revulsion. To be angry at yourself for feeling angry is missing the point, anger isn’t the failing it’s the notification of failure.

/not a practicing Buddhist

Well the point in Buddhism is not that anger is a symptom of pain but a primary cause of pain. The Buddha even says in an early scripture that anger is the one thing we should kill outright, since it’s considered totally destructive. In effect, the root of all evil

I’m not disagreeing with that. Anger is totally destructive. You shouldn’t try to get angry, and mindlessly doing what anger prompts you to do is a terrible idea, but understand what about yourself caused you to feel anger and you can change.

You can also impact the outside world to address the situation, but the situation and how you feel about the situation are different matters.

Sorry if the above is incoherent, I’m operating on little sleep.

Well I disagree with the idea that anger is totally destructive, is the point

In what situation is having your judgment clouded by anger a good thing?

The closest I could come up with is it might make your body language more convincing. But it’s not hard to fake being angry.

Who said anything about clouding? Often in anger my judgement is clear and precise

Semantics aside, I can’t help but note you didn’t have any example.

Embracing anger wouldn't be a better answer.

Addressing the problem that lead to anger, or moving away from what causes would.

Anger is a tool. We get angry for a reason - it unlocks a reserve of strength that we can't usually call on. That strength comes with a price, but that in the evolutionary context of anger (kill or be killed) that price was always worth it. Think of it like in Anime where the hero uses a special power that can defeat really strong foes, but it leaves them spent and vulnerable.

Unfortunately, in modern day life, the power anger gives us is generally useless, so we are paying the price for nothing.

I think that shame is likely worse than anger, though parents worldwide use shame as a method for controlling their kids. Hopefully in the future kids are given more tools for how to recognize and deal with shame.

I think there are different types of anger. It depends on why you feel it, whether it is out of control, and whether it is linked to hatred.

Christianity has both the idea of anger as a deadly sin and the concept of righteous anger.

I was also taught to suppress my anger, and it still causes me problems to this day.

An autistic friend said something to me a few years ago that changed my perspective on it completely. She said “Seph, I never know with you whether you’re actually calm or you just seem calm. It’s like you’re an oven and whenever I stick my hand in, the oven feels cold. But then one day the house will suddenly be on fire”. I thought I was helping by suppressing my anger, but it was actually stressing her out because she couldn’t calibrate. People want to know if they’re doing something that’s pissing you off so they can decide if they’re going to cut it out. Now, sometimes I think of it as “oh, I feel about a 2 out of 10 anger now. What does 2/10 anger look like?” - and then I try to communicate that. If the situation gets better, my anger dissipates and I relax. If the situation gets worse, fine, now we go up to a 4 out of 10 or something. And I try to express that. My voice and posture change, and I do the human equivalent of growling.

My friends point is that predictability is a virtue. People hate it when you’re angry all of a sudden, out of nowhere. But they weirdly like it when things escalate and deescalate naturally. To do that, it’s important to be able to accurately communicate exactly how angry you feel along the way so people know where they stand with you. (Even, and especially if that’s just a very slight 1/10 frustration).

It’s a skill as much as it’s an emotion. I wish people practiced their anger more.

> I was taught it was shameful to be angry, and my main religious experience was with Buddhism, which says anger is always purely bad.

I don't know who your teacher was, and I'm sure their motivation was coming from a good place, but I have to say that I think they were wrong about that. Was it a Theravada tradition perhaps?

Anger itself is not bad, but reacting out of anger unskillfully is. Yes, the Buddha many times all over the Pali cannon says to abandon anger, that it is a poison, but that doesn't mean that we should generate aversion for it. How can we abandon aversion if we don't look at our anger directly?

At the beginning we might have to put it aside, but we'll always have to come back to it and deal with it at some point. One of my teachers told a story that sort of relates to this in one of his talks, just to emphasize that we need to look at these emotions and deal with them directly. In case people are interested, it starts after the opening meditation at about the 20 minute mark: https://phuntsok.org/media/Meditation-NYC/080417_Healingthet...

Thank you for sharing. I feel you. There are many ways that teachings are passed onto us that can be harmful. I did not know how to deal with anger, no guidance whatsoever. So I just kept harming myself and others. The remedy was to accept that I was in a cycle where love and empathy were not reaching me, I was actively blocking them myself. Therapy helped immensely.

Shame and guilt is self-anger. Anger directed at yourself.

Well, since we're talking religion, here's another take:

> Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil (Ephesians 4:26).

And some additional reading of interested: https://www.ccef.org/be-angry-and-do-not-sin

Thanks for sharing this! I actually think it's the same take, as Buddhism teaches that there are skillful and unskillful ways to relate to all things that arise, with anger being one of the five main categories (kleshas) [1][2]. It's never to attempt to block those emotions, but to let them arise, look at them directly, and understand how to relate with them skillfully. One of the teachings is that all things come from love, but it's just that it's often filtered through our ignorance which causes us to act unskillfully.

A Tibetan teacher liked to say that westerners think that Buddhism is all calm and peaceful, and that compassion is soft and gentle, but when we're talking about waking up to the true nature of reality a slap in the face could be an act of compassion. It's just that most of us aren't awake enough to judge when a slap is compassionate, so we should probably not do that at the beginning of the path!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tath%C4%81gatas#Elements_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleshas_(Buddhism)#Five_poison...

> A Tibetan teacher liked to say that westerners think that Buddhism is all calm and peaceful, and that compassion is soft and gentle

The excellent Youtube Channel "Religion for Breakfast" touched on this subject toward the end of his "Buddhism Has a Lot of Hells" video[1], where he explained that it's a case of orientalism (in the 'Edward Saïd' sense). In this case, since Buddhism was mostly imported in the west by hippy-style counter-culture movements, and since it was presented as an alternative to judeo-christian values, there was a tendency to omit things (like the concept of hell and damnation) that wasn't deemed foreign (to western culture) enough.

If one is interested in the history of religion, then I heartily recommend both "Religion for Breakfast" and "Let's talk Religion" Youtube Channels, they are truly amazing both in breadth and in quality.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKWmMLlSPsM

The article says: "Getting angry [...] is damaging to our hearts, brains and gastrointestinal systems [...] it’s a normal emotion that everyone feels [...] But getting mad too often or for too long can cause problems."

Like it says on Wikipedia, by the Buddhist teaching, they are "poisons", and this also means that it is "poison".

I agree with what you say, there are skillful and unskillful ways to relate to all things that arise.

> "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

That's exactly the Six Realms conception of hell beings. They are not in Naraka because they had done something bad and being punished for it, so much as, being consumed by anger, wanting to punish others, leaves them in a place of living in hell. There is both "hot" Naraka and "cold" Naraka, just as anger can run hot or cold.

One of problems with trying to discuss a word like anger, which has lots of meanings, is that people talk past each other, as many are doing in this discussion.

There are different kinds of anger. I have not doubt that some are useful, some are damaging, and some are both at the same time.

I think one kind of anger that can be particularly damaging is cited in the parent comment here. It's a chronic anger that was formed in childhood and accompanies a person through life looking for new threats, targets, and sources of outrage. I've known people holding that kind of anger, I've also been that person at least sometimes, and yes it's damaging to oneself and others. Profoundly maladaptive. A way to sabotage yourself, your relationships and your livelihood. That's a chronic anger.

But there are other forms of anger that might be momentary, and come up when something is going wrong that should be stopped. Maybe anger is the wrong term, but I'm talking about a sense of "this is wrong, and I'm going to intervene now." Sure, that can misfire, but it can also be useful and prevent a lot of harm.

I recognise the chronic anger just looking for places to manifest. And while I could justify it as a source of ventilation at work, I’d be more combative at home after work.

It’s fine to have learned to get angry when witnessing injustice. Sometimes it is the best solution to be loud and noisy. And sometimes scaring a person is the only solution I know.

In a gestalt session at an anger management therapist, I told myself that there is always better solutions, I just don’t always know them yet.

> "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

another take is that in competitive and adversarial society, anger is natural response to outside hostile action, and the goal is to use it as a source of focus to push back on hostility, but in calculated and cold blooded way. Anger releases lots of hormones which could be very useful in difficult situation if one can control himself.

I have found that anger is my problem; regardless of whether or not it’s justified.

Anger isn’t actually an “emotion.” It’s a reaction. It causes our body to generate a bunch of endocrine changes to “supercharge,” and also causes our thinking to simplify into a fairly binary “fight or flight” mode.

We don’t usually make good decisions, when we’re angry; which is exactly why demagogues have striven to make people angry, for time immemorial.

So if I’m angry, I do my best to put it aside (easier said, than done, most times), and avoid making important decisions, while I’m fuming.

Im a huge fan of this mindset! A man’s search for meaning by viktor frankl is a brutal but good read partially about that mindset.

Somehow any problem in life could be reduced to nearly no stress/anxiety/anger/etc when I realized I could just.. choose to not have those responses. The drawback is you see others responding with extreme emotion and it can be difficult to accept their feelings as valid.

Seconding the recommendation for that book. It helped me grow as an individual.

Also the Emotional Intelligence book by Daniel Goleman. Its explanation of the Amygdala's role in fight or flight emotional regulation was very impactful for me.

I agree with your mindset, but this is interesting to me:

>Anger isn’t actually an “emotion.” It’s a reaction.

Are there emotions which are not reactions?

Well, the basic wisdom, as I have been told, is that anger is a reaction to fear, which is an emotion, but that’s a fairly unpopular PoV. Anger is “manly,” while fear is “wussy.”

No one likes to admit they’re frightened, but, in my experience, identifying the fear, and addressing that, is quite effective.

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - Yoda, "A Long Time Ago".. ;-)

> Well, the basic wisdom, as I have been told, is that anger is a reaction to fear ...

Oh, that's very different from what I learned, and have seen, which is that anger is a reaction to not having control over something (that you do actually want control of).

So, when something occurs that's different to how a person wishes it to be (for whatever reason) they (can) get angry.

Maybe fear is the reason they seek control of that something though. The main times I feel anger are when people waste my time, because I lost time that I could have used for better purposes. I could see that ultimately being due to a fear of having too little time to do what I want to do in life.

> Maybe fear is the reason they seek control of that something though ...

Maybe sometimes, but it would be pretty rare.

At least for myself, and other people I know well.

Why else would you want control over something though? If not to make sure you get what you want. Which is driven by a fear of not getting what you want?

(A side note from an angry control freak thinking about this thread).

At that point I tend to agree it boils down to control which boils down to feat and it’s just very hard to admit.

> Which is driven by a fear of not getting what you want?

That really seems like trying to shoehorn a square into a circle, and doesn't make any sense to me personally.

If that's how you work though, then no worries. :)

> Anger isn’t actually an “emotion.” It’s a reaction.

All emotions are reactions.

> It causes our body to generate a bunch of endocrine changes to “supercharge,” and also causes our thinking to simplify into a fairly binary “fight or flight” mode.

All emotions have biochemical bases /consequences and impact cognition. In fact, fight or flight response is specifically mediated by adrenaline, which is not specific to anger, any mental or physical stress can trigger it.

The old "When angry, count to 10 before you speak. If very angry, a hundred" advice is very wise!

> It causes our body to generate a bunch of endocrine changes to “supercharge,” > So if I’m angry, I do my best to put it aside (easier said, than done, most times), and avoid making important decisions, while I’m fuming.

strategy could be to make decisions and plans at time of emotional stability, and use times of anger for actions with full focus and resolve.

Expressed anger/emotion is okay, bottled up anger/emotion is not good. And all restraint must hit the emotion sink without delay. So don't keep emotional debt. Settle it right away or forget it forever.

This really applies to all emotion. Bottles up emotion isn’t great for our mental or physical health.

It's common to talk about one incidence of anger being expressed versus years of anger being suppressed, while most people do a mixture of expression and suppression, and there are ways to reduce anger without suppression.

Of course, sometimes how a preference is expressed for suppression or expression comes from an underlying personality type and philosophy— is a heuristic or justification for personal preference.

Many athletes and actors practice a brief expression of frustration followed by conscious breathing as a way to reduce and channel anger, rather than suppressing it or giving into a feeling of being out of control. Behaving from a place of being out of control tends to be where a lot of damage in life is caused.

Another popular point of view is someone who expresses anger saying it is truth, as Harry Truman responded to someone who said "Give 'em hell. Harry!", He replied "I just tell them the truth and they think it's hell."

A family member who has this issue has many stories such as this one: "I parked in front of the restaurant and before I could get out this guy I don't know was at my window screaming at me. I don't know why this always happens to me." When you spend some time with this person, you find that they have poor impulse control and lack of awareness of how their choices affect others. The reason these things "always happen to them" is because they cause it to happen through their behavior.

I'd like to know the neurochemistry behind this.

I have embraced my emotions and I have never been more miserable. Verses when I was a practicing Stoic and ignored them.

When you embrace your emotions, your brain focuses on different things. If I ignored an emotion, I can go back to work. If I embrace an emotion, I might dig deep into a PTSD-style event, and be bummed all day.

I'm not sure where this idea to 'get your emotions out when they come', I'm not sure its scientific.

> I'm not sure where this idea to 'get your emotions out when they come', I'm not sure its scientific.

IME it's from people who have no idea how to do it any other way, unfortunately. They never experienced being capable of suppressing emotions and lack the imagination that it can be learned. (Or maybe it can't, but some of them end up getting medication and realize what they were missing.)

> Verses when I was a practicing Stoic and ignored them.

That's not what stoicism is about, at all

Ah fellow HN contrarian!

I didn't say it was. I was talking about how a philosophy was able to help me mentally.

I can explain Stoicism, I just didn't feel the need to. Other people can go google it.

> I didn't say it was.

You heavily implied it, and it's a very common criticism of stoicism, I don't want people to have such a negative view of it from the get go

> when I was a practicing Stoic and ignored them

Ignored, or acknowledged and prioritized?

Farnsworth in "The Practicing Stoic" Ch9:

So a first Stoic remedy for anger, as for other such problems, is a return to Chapter 1: recognize it as an option and let it go.

Try meditation. So notice the emotion/thought, be curious about it and then let it go and return to the meditation.

You might also try EMDR to reprogram the amygdala.

I think this metaphor is imperfect. My anger is not necessarily something that has to be stewed on. ie, my mind is not a pressure cooker where anger will never dissipate unless it's released. For instance, I spend zero time thinking about the wrongs done to me in middle school, even though those conflicts were never really resolved in any sort of satisfying or adult way. Crucially, the triggers for those issues are lost to the distant past.

So, when must I address my anger? Crucially, it's when the situation which led to it goes unresolved; eg: I work with someone who is bullying me, and I must resolve it because I'll see them every day. Or, I'm angry about something my spouse does, but I've never talked to her about it. In that case, "keeping it bottled up" is relevant because the conflict will be refreshed daily. ie, it's the externality of the stimulus which makes the "bottled up" metaphor relevant.

> Expressed anger/emotion is okay

No it's not

> bottled up anger/emotion is not good

Yes it is

It is tautologically obvious why expressing anger does not result in reduced anger in the long term, and why practicing subduing your anger is beneficial. Cathartic expression of anger is a long-debunked approach to coping with it.

> It is tautologically obvious why expressing anger does not result in reduced anger in the long term, and why practicing subduing your anger is beneficial.

It isn't obvious at all to me and doesn't match my experience.

Maybe you have some kind of healthy expression of anger, but multiple studies have shown that venting anger physically or verbally just exacerbates it, because it causes you to ruminate on the causes of the anger, which just feeds back into it [1]. Focusing on something else, like a logic puzzle, can diffuse it.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273582...

I thought we were talking about long term, not short term.

I agree, in the short term anger can have negative consequences. But longer term, as you ruminate on the causes of anger, you can be more objective and see that the reaction may have been an overreaction and unproductive. You might even have regret (I've certainly felt regret).

If I always subdued my anger, I'd probably end up like the dog in the this is fine meme (and I'm not an angry person!).

On reflection, it depends on what was meant by 'express' in the previous post; if an expression is a constructive discussion then that may be good. If an expression is smashing things or shouting, that isn't good.

Aggressive expressions don't work long term because they reinforce the behaviour of outwardly and rapidly being angry.

That really depends on how you expect people to express their anger. Yell, punch a hole in the wall, kick a puppy or assault a co-worker is not really acceptable.

If people could stick to "I'm rather angry with you right now, so I'm leaving" then sure, by all means express your anger.

Expressed well, yes. Letting it rip, no. There's supporting research that shows that unconstrained expression of anger is not a good plan. If you want to trawl medical papers for details, this one's a good starting point: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824648/

(Note - you want the referenced papers, not the actual paper itself, which I consider weak-ish)

This is, theoretically, part of becoming an adult: Becoming aware of your emotions, and learning to express them in a healthy way. (Not just anger). Our society spectacularly fails us on that subject. We do extremely little to even explain what emotions are and how they influence it. (There's a reason "Inside Out" was a huge hit - it's one of the few pop culture pieces trying to do that job)

Agree. Expressed well and measured. And it is learned by expressing badly first and then one gets better. When kids have a tantrum it is a good opportunity to make them aware of it and allow them modulate it. But if one doesn't let them express or gives no attention to their expression it can foster other emotions and delays the learning of modulation.

Unconstrained expression of anger is usually a result of long term suppression and then falling into the trap that suppression doesn't work so modulation will also not.

Yup. That's where we fail people. As children. With "suck it up", and "you can't have a tantrum, you're grounded" etc, etc. Most people with anger issues honestly just don't know what to do - that's why courts send people to anger management classes. (Long argument to be had if those work reliably, and the quality of people teaching them, but better than not doing anything)

Of course, people who aren't ordered to go there instead get to fall into the "admitting you're working on your emotions is weakness" trap. Shit's hard, for everybody. Men get larded with "tough it out", women get "you're too emotional" instead. Minorities get "you must be respectable". Majority folk get "you have it good, clearly it is impossible for you to suffer, and you have no right to complain".

I wish we were more supportive as a society, and more focused on helping people develop emotional skills.

Maybe I misunderstand it, but I don't like this metaphor.

Anger is not a constantly accumulating waste product that must be regularly emptied out.

It goes away by itself if you wait a while.

A recent video by Einzelgänger explained that the Freudian idea of expressing your anger isn't really holding up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqhW2-z14xY

Thanks for this, very insightful. I'd love to hear from sumitkumar as to why they think it's good to express anger, as well as any sources that they have.

It is difficult to model the anger and resolution patterns easily but I will try. Say there is a discomfort/cause/trauma for anger. In a way it is a stress response to prepare one to fight or make a change. If one adds a little anger to a fight their response improves. And if one doesn't use the anger as a signal, the signal gets louder next time. During an acute stress response it is better to use the anger energy and express yourself and win/lose/stall the fight rather than mute/lose the fight and in later revisits to the incident give in to the anger because later there is no outlet or easy resolution except letting go. The helplessness of not acting gives rise to the emotions of regret/revenge and impact self-worth/identity when the action is delayed. And these emotions are more damaging than anger as they can influence our positive actions in other areas.

Now in our current world not every incidence of anger is because of a conflict but follows the same pattern. To talk about the bad weather is better than grumbling about it. Grumbling about it is better than grinding your teeth. And expression does not mean give in to the anger without awareness, so it is not okay to direct the rage one felt in the workplace to their family members or to kick the tyre of a car.

One of the best things I've discovered recently is how to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. It's quite easy: just inhale a belly breath but then draw the transverse abdominis back towards the spine below the navel. This helps the rest of the air you inhale effortlessly expand your rib cage from bottom to top if you relax.

If you do it right, the transverse abdominis above the navel should bulge out as your diaphragm descends. It's accompanied by an amazing tingling sensation.

I can't imagine it being possible to hold on to anger while I'm that state.

I learnt about it in the book Pranayama by Gregor Maehle.

noted

I don't get it, can you explain it in simple terms.

Taking relaxed, full (as in makes your entire ribcage expand) breaths is super relaxing, activating the parasympathetic nervous system. But previously whenever I tried to take a relaxed breath, either all the air would fill the bottom of my lungs making only my belly expand, or I'd use my intercostal muscles to expand my mid and upper ribcage, but that wasn't super relaxing.

If you breathe first allowing the lower lobes of your lungs to fill so your belly expands a bit, but then draw the transverse abdominis below the navel back to the spine, you can continue to inhale but the breath will cause the ribcage to expand from bottom to top as well (and the abdomen above the navel will expand too).

Since you're not using the intercostal muscles it's very relaxing. It also allows the breath to expand in all directions, including at the back. The diaphragm then applies a gentle pressure to the adrenals.

I recommend reading the book for more info. It makes breathing so pleasurable you just want to keep doing it.

Related: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19396563

I gave up anger ~20 years ago, and it's maybe the best thing I've ever done.

I'm not claiming it's easy or that my way is universal, but this worked for me:

- Like anyone else alive, I get momentarily angry. The important things are (1) don't hold on to it, and (2) remember that being angry is being stupid, so don't do anything irreversible while raged up. There is plenty time later to burn everything down, if that really needs to happen.

- It's very important to accept reality. Accepting something doesn't mean that you love it. It means more "act as if it's true".

- There is this myth that you have to be angry to accomplish change. This is just wrong. You accomplish a lot more with a rational clear mind than blinded by rage.

Fear -> anger -> (redirect) -> Courage

> There is this myth that you have to be angry to accomplish change. This is just wrong.

Aye.

And the same can be said of fear itself; however, it will be a few more years or decades before humans will come to accept that fact (many people still believe that without fear in their life they will not be able to live a meaningful and productive life).

I find it hard to "control" my anger. It's a lot easier to walk away, do something else until it subsides, etc. Basically remove myself from the situation. The best thing I've done is simply to lower my stress and magically most of the anger goes away. Regular sleep, exercise, and nutrition can also greatly lower your tendency to do it. Meditation never did much for me, I've tried multitudes of time. Doing things that have me focus on one "simple" task though are wonderful to lower stress and let things percolate in my brain that are frustrating and often I come up with a solution.

On the other hand, appreciating life has a positive effect on mood and body.

Some people use "gratitude", but I much prefer "appreciation" as it has less spiritual connotations.

A ongoing genuine appreciation is the key.

Does this justify legislation that bans algorithmic content based on outrage?

10 years ago I was an Anarchist and would think this is overreach.

Today, I realize we are animals driven by biology that don't get to control our environment.

We do need laws in-place to prevent Strong Powers(big companies with psychology/marketing departments) from exploiting Weak Powers(individuals).

There is some group of people that accept the status quo, think that humans have perfect freewill and can resist the social pressure of Blue Bubbles or temptations of clickbait. I think these people need to be ignored. They are idealists, which isnt particularly helpful.

I couldn’t agree more.

Had to look up "Blue Bubbles" because I wasn't exactly sure what you meant by that. Searching only on the term was worthless because there's now an app named that. Search results were all ads for it, or for the subreddit.

The phrase "social pressure of Blue Bubbles" led to discussions of Apple's blue text for iMessage users and green for standard SMS messages. Is that what you were referring to?

I think we need something both milder and stronger than ignored. I think we need concrete and rational arguments to persuade them away from such idealism. The biggest problem I have for those people in my life is they're often angry when such discussion come up...

Anger is an energy.

How’s half the electorate still alive.

Their time is as finite as the other half.

Archive.org doesn't remove the paywall, and the audio is just a preview.

This makes me so angry.

Edit: /s

Why would it be free?

it's a joke

Check with your local library. Mine offers members free access to the WSJ. It’s 3 days at a time, just need to click a link to re-up when it runs out.

Anyone else getting this on WSJ.com?

You have been blocked. Why? Something about the behaviour of the browser has caught our attention.

Not even a captcha or anything.

Update: for those with the same issue: https://archive.is/XGe5U Thanks to @throwanem for the WSJ unpaywalled share link.

Are you a bot?

No why?

From the point of view of the WSJ, if your company "puts you through" a hosted proxy browser (like, for example, but not limited to https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/zero-trust/products/browser... - there are other vendors for this), then you're a bot for all they care.

This is not uncommon for sites using Cloudflare (bot protection), especially if you have adblockers or script blockers of some kind turned on that prevent browser fingerprinting.

If you have dev tools open you get blocked also.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com