Not so good. We've got people who have told their boss where to go, only to find a pink slip in their email the next day. And we still have anger-related diseases such as anxiety and heart disease. The latest research, as presented in the Boston Globe , tells us that letting it all out only makes things worse. Experiments with men and women showed that those who were allowed to express their anger aggressively became more aggressive afterwards, compared to subjects who were encouraged to calm down after becoming angry.
Evidence also shows that anger, like other strong emotions such as shock, can trigger heart attacks.
One study of heart attack survivors showed that in the two-hour period after someone experiences intense anger, heart attack risk doubles. In a healthy person, this may not amount to much, but in someone already with heart disease, this can be very dangerous. According to psychologist Anne Alonso, clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, venting may cover up something deeper that's going on. Anger is often a defense against feelings of helplessness and depression. So when you encourage the defense, you put a greater distance between the real problem and the patient's ability to deal with it.