Studies show that anger can literally kill us

Reuters is reporting that

"Anger and other strong emotions can trigger potentially deadly heart rhythms in certain vulnerable people."

That negative emotions like anger affect us powerfully, causing stress, anxiety, and even ill health has long been known. But these recent studies have discovered that the link between ill health is stronger than we may ever have thought.

Dr. Rachel Lampert of Yale University has conducted a three year study on people with heart problems. Her studies, soon to be published in the "Journal of the American College of Cardiology," suggest a strong link between intense anger ad sudden death. In such cases the sudden death is the result of arrhythmia. In other words, Dr. Lampert's studies show that people who already have heart problems are at risk of sudden death as a result of anger. It is not clear how at risk people without heart problems are, though it is likely that healthy people too have health risks caused by anger.

Dr. Lampert's studies do raise some ethical concerns. According to Reuters, Lambert's

"team specifically asked questions to get people to relive the angry episode. "We found in the lab setting that yes, anger did increase this electrical instability in these patients," she said.

Next, they followed patients for three years to see which patients later had a cardiac arrest and needed a shock from their implantable defibrillator."

Obviously there is an ethical concern over having patients engage in behavior that might very well put them at risk, as Dr. Lambert's studies indicate having them relive their angry episodes would do.

Nevertheless the moral is clear: Anger and other negative emotions are not only bad for one's healthy, but potentially life threatening. This should remind us all, that we should cultivate positive emotions and try to re channel the negative ones, just as Spinoza taught over three centuries ago.