Losing your temper from time to time is part of the human experience, and it’s well documented that chronic anger is linked to cardiovascular disease . New research, however, suggests the mere recollection of a time you were angry may be harmful to your heart. Spending several minutes ruminating on a past situation that made you angry can interfere with your blood vessels’ ability to relax, thereby impeding blood flow, according to a study published in May in the Journal of the American Heart Association .
“Impaired vascular function is linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke ,” lead author Dr. Daichi Shimbo , a professor in the Division of Cardiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center , said in a news release . “Observational studies have linked feelings of negative emotions with having a heart attack or other cardiovascular disease events.
The most common negative emotion studied is anger, and there are fewer studies on anxiety and sadness , which have also been linked to heart attack risk.” Shimbo and his colleagues explored the effects of anger, anxiety, and sadness on blood vessel function. The 280 people in the randomized controlled study were assigned one of these emotional tasks for eight minutes: Prior to beginning their respective assignments, participants were instructed to relax for 30 minutes—in comfortable chairs in a temperature-controlled room—without talking or using their phones.
They also weren’t allowed to read or.
