The Impact of Anger on our Health

Photo by moein moradi

Anger is a strong emotion-it’s visceral, warm and intense. It’s like a fire running through the earth, unchecked it can destroy whatever it touches. Met with understanding it can lead us to greater wisdom about ourselves.

This is the emotion that drives protection-the fight aspect of the nervous system. It’s a healthy emotion when it’s protective-establishing boundaries, alerting us to threats, giving us the energy to change. So why is it often considered unhealthy? Or why does chinese medicine talk so much about the effects of anger on the body’s health?

Before I go any further I want to clarify something. Anger in itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just an emotion, just a feeling, a sensation. It’s just anger. It’s ok to feel anger and to express it in a healthy way. Being present and mindful with anger in the body is like a lightning rod-it helps discharge and neutralise the intensity of anger, prevents it from disturbing the body or the mind. It’s acting out of anger without being mindful of what we’re doing that’s problematic. It’s stewing on anger, bottling it up, thinking constantly from a place of anger that disturbs our peace of mind. 

At Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu I spent ten days in retreat and the monk guiding us through meditations on anger defined it broadly as simply not getting what we want. Unfulfilled desire will often lead to anger, and suffering.

Anger like all emotions-needs to be in balance. It requires awareness and presence-if you’re blind or numb to anger, chances are it's affecting you in ways you don’t realise. Anger that is externalised or projected onto others through outbursts of violence or harsh words will damage and destroy the world around us, sabotage relationships and friendships. It can lead to shame and regret for our actions, tear us away from the ones we love.

Anger that is internalised affects our psyche, our mind and our body. Repressed or hidden anger will show up in a number of ways in the body: tightness through the neck and shoulders, tension around the jaw, headaches, broken or restless sleep, bloating and digestive problems. Anxiety is often a result of anger simply not being expressed, simply by not knowing how. 

Anger and frustration most affects the Liver and the Gallbladder directly, and can also affect the Large Intestine, the Lungs and the skin. Crohn’s, acne, eczema, IBS, headaches,  are all signs that anger may be affecting the body in Chinese medicine. 

Anger is warm, it's hot-it raises blood pressure, the adrenal glands flood the body with adrenaline and cortisol. Blood is circulated away from the gut and internal organs to the muscles in preparation for fight or flight. All of this is necessary to keep us safe and away from acute physical harm-but if we can’t regulate our nervous system and come back to the rest and digest phase of the nervous system-well, then stress is prolonged and our gut and immune systems don’t need the energy they need to function properly. 

So how do you work with anger?

In Chinese medicine the Liver and Gallbladder show signs of anger/frustration first-so to begin with we need to be able to regulate our emotions through the body. That means tolerating the physical sensation of anger, observing the thoughts and images that arise when we’re angry and allowing it to arise, of breathing mindfully and feeling the sensations until they pass. 

This is where mindfulness, movement, exercise are all great options as they can increase our awareness of the body so that when emotions arise we’re prepared. It also gives us the tools to self-regulate and self-soothe. 

Anger is the emotion of change. We see something we don’t like and the energy of frustration or anger is what drives us to get up off our ass and do something about it. Anger at injustice, social inequality, can be recognised and harnessed to do good. Should you bottle up that anger and let it fester? No. Just recognise it as a motivator for change, and come back to feeling and processing it-don’t cling to anger. 

The issue is not anger, it's not being embodied or present enough to actually recognise what anger looks and feels like, or that’s it even arising in the first place. Approach anger with awareness, with kindness, with patience. Be patient with yourself, wherever you are at in your process.

I hope this lands for you. In love and service,

Peter.