The Negative Affects of Anger

Welcome to the Women’s Empowered Health Solutions Blog!

I wanted to write about a subject that is, in my eyes, crucial to how we, as humans, can experience life. I want to touch on a specific emotion that can change lives on a turn of a dime. Anger.

And I want to talk about ways that it can affect not only ourselves but others too, and what it does to the body.

Some people choose to ignore it, some people put on blinders in an attempt to deflect it, and others may acknowledge it as a part of the human condition and choose to either work on releasing it or the opposite, they abandon it and shift into toxic positivity out of fear, or lacking the skill, of communicating their needs. The latter was me until it was not sustainable and my body revolted.

With the state of the country and all that is getting disrupted, this subject could be relevant to you at any time, and as an advocate of lowering cortisol levels through cultivating peace of mind, I feel it‘s my duty to prepare you for when it is relevant. It is a natural emotion after all. Humans experience emotion and they aren’t always high vibing. So let’s talk a little bit about anger since it sits slightly above hate on the vibrational scale of emotions.

Like I said, anger is a normal human emotion and there is no way around it. However, if this emotion is not acknowledged and released it can snowball into something much more than the body can handle. 

Take a moment to drum up a memory of a situation that had you fuming with anger. It could’ve been an interaction with another person, a situation that you felt was unjust or simply a thought that you were ruminating on without addressing and it ate away at you for too long until you caved or blew up. Sit with it for a minute.

Now take a moment to do a body scan, do you feel the reminiscence of that anger somewhere in your body? Your gut, a specific joint? Maybe you’re feeling some tension in your neck or a slight headache? Maybe something else?

That, my friend, is anger not released. It is stored in your body by your Amygdala. The part of your brain responsible for turning experiences into body memory so your body can respond appropriately for next time the emotions are triggered with anger, fear, fright, or anxiety. 

This is normal, it’s the brain's job to keep us ‘safe’ in dangerous situations. It’s the reptilian response system. I’m sure you’ve seen a lizard high tailing it away from your big scary steps.

Now, with that being said. Are you in danger right now as you are remembering that experience? Is your life being threatened? Probably not. But this is the response that the body automatically resorts to. Hidden in the not so subtle Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS).

Although life now is much safer than any other time, people are suffering the repercussions of the amygdala throwing us into fight or flight. Why? Because the levels of stress, induced by many factors, have increased significantly over the last several decades causing the reptilian response to be just an emotion away.

From pandemic induced stress, political division, workplace stress, relationship stress, to financial stress and more; our human bodies are in a prolonged, chronic, possibly subatomic level of stress which has become the societal norm. In the latest Gallup poll nearly half of the U.S. adult population reported feeling stress frequently, yet some people are so used to this state of being that they don’t even recognize it. And the kids…they are stressed too! 

So it’s no wonder why so many people are at the end of the proverbial rope and experience anger, whether it’s rumination or expressed spontaneously through road rage, public disruption or just plainly having a negative outlook about life.

And when you ask a person, “how are you doing?” Most people respond with, “fine”…really? I would go further into this but that's a-whole-nother subject and this blog is long enough as it is.

Back to anger. Brace yourself for this…

This past week, two elderly men were driving in a small desert town. A quick brake stop at a traffic light turned almost deadly when the one doing the quick stop followed the other into a Walgreens parking lot. He got out of the car to go talk to the man who was in front of him at the light and the man that was in front shot him. Yes, right there in the parking lot. The shooter told the cop that he just “lost it under the weight of challenges in his personal life”. He said “it was the straw that broke the camel's back” and he snapped.

Whatever led up to that reaction could have been avoided, somehow. Stress and perhaps pent up anger, that he probably did not know how to release, came out in one big, literal, BANG. Actually 4 with 2 making critical contact.

This was the first of two shooting incidents on the same day in the same small town, the second being fatal. This is why I do not watch the news. I received this information via word of mouth and did further research as I was in the process of mentally writing a blog about anger, ironically enough.

Humans are social creatures and need social connections to thrive. When not addressed in a healthy way, anger can lead to regrettable verbal rants and violent behavior.

People are mad! Anger is a SNS response and it is rampant. It’s essential to become aware of this deadly emotion and do what you can to release it. 

Not only is does this emotion result in deadly and extreme incidents’ like I just mentioned, prolonged stress and rumination of anger keeps the SNS turned on, seeping cortisol into the body like a slow drip from a clogged pipe that’s ready to burst, and one simple trigger can cause an explosion of reaction. 

Cortisol (along with adrenaline) is the stress hormone that prepares one to fight or flee in life threatening situations. It works great for gazelles running from the lion, but it was not meant to be experienced in a low, and constant form.

This also happens the moment the SNS is triggered in preparation to fight or flee:

• Heart rate increases

• Blood pressure rises

• Blood flow, and the oxygen within it, is redirected away from non-essential organs and towards the muscles, heart and brain

• Muscles tense up which causes shaking

• Senses become heightened

• Pupils dilate

• Blood sugar levels rise

• Time perception is altered to slow down

With the amount of chronic stress and anger in the world today and the SNS on a slow drip the operation of the system is still affecting the body in a deadly way.

Chronic stress, anger and high cortisol levels are a thing, and they can contribute to:

• Fatigue

• Bone loss

• Obesity

• Faster aging

• Sleep disturbances

• Gastrointestinal disease

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Stroke

• Diabetes

• High cholesterol

• Heart disease

• High blood pressure

• Heart attack

Here is the million dollar question…How do we fix this? How do we come back to homeostasis?

There are many ways to ‘bandaid’ this dilemma, And some of them can be ok for a way to get the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) kickstarted,  but who wants to just bandaid stress when there are ways to sustain peace of mind?

Let's put some time and effort into releasing anger, lowering stress, changing mindsets. There are more sustainable ways to handle with and address stress and anger at it’s root. 

Here a few convention ways:

• Physical activity

• Anger management group meetings

• Trusting friendships

• Talk therapy

• Life coaching

• Journaling

• Reframing your thoughts

Because I specialize in the Alternative Healing Arts, I highly suggest starting with a practice of mindfulness that has helped thousands, if not millions, for millennia. 

Tai Chi and Qi Gong are meditative movement practices That I am not trained in but I am highly trained in yoga, guided meditation, and sound healing meditation.

So many people say they don’t have time to meditate, or they can’t quiet the mind enough to meditate. 

But, can your body really afford to keep going on, holding on to anger, emotional pain, frustration, and stress? 

There are ways to build the meditation “muscle”. By practicing being present with the breath the body, these guided meditations allow the body to release energetic blockages slow and steady without having to verbally revisit the experiences over and over again like in talk therapy.

With Integrative Amrit Yoga Method™ Yoga Nidra, you just get comfortable laying down, closing your eyes and listening to my voice until you feel like you are in a dream state. Here, your body starts to innately shift from SNS to PNS. Here, our body and your mind begins to heal itself. Anyone can do it.

In fact if you would like to learn more go here. Or if you live in or near the Kingman Arizona area you can find me at Cultivate Energy Yoga,  guiding yoga nidra meditation on Wednesday’s from 6:30-7:30pm. And if you want to try it out in the comfort of your own home first go here.

I look forward to guiding meditation for you! My passion, my purpose in life is to help people shift from SNS to PNS. To help lower cortisol levels and live a happy, peaceful and fulfilling life of joy. It’s waaaay better than living in anger.

Shanti ~ Peace

Love, Rose