Anger Is Good for You

[ghost of miles]

Heartening news afaic, since I have a bit of a short temper--or used to, anyway. Mellowing a bit with age, I guess. But generally I do feel better if I get a bit mad about something right away and then get over it, get it out of my system:

Robin Lloyd

Special to LiveScience

LiveScience.com

2 hours, 49 minutes ago

PITTSBURGH – Anger is good for you, as long as you keep it below a boil, according to new psychology research based on face reading.

People who respond to stressful situations with short-term anger or indignation have a sense of control and optimism that lacks in those who respond with fear.

"These are the most exciting data I've ever collected," Carnegie Mellon psychologist Jennifer Lerner told a gathering of science writers here last month.

Lerner harassed 92 UCLA students by having experimenters ask subjects to count backward on camera by 13s starting with an odd number like 6,233, telling them it was an intelligence test and then telling them they weren't counting fast enough and to speed it up as they went along.

Wrong answers meant subjects had to start all over again.

Another test involved counting backwards by sevens from 9,095.

So angry …

The video cameras caught subjects' facial expressions during the tests, ranging from deer-in-the-headlights to seriously upset.  The researchers identified fear, anger and disgust using a psychologist's coding system that considers the flexing of particular sets of small muscles in the face.

The researchers also recorded people's blood pressure, pulse and secretion of a high-stress hormone called cortisol, which can be measured in the saliva and collected with a cotton swab.

The people whose faces showed more fear during the had higher blood pressure and higher levels of the hormone. The findings were the same for men and women.

Lerner previously studied Americans' emotional response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks two months afterward and found that anger triggers feelings of certainty and control. People who reacted with anger were more optimistic about risk and more likely to favor an aggressive response to terrorism.

Go ahead, get angry

So in maddening situations in which anger or indignation are justified, anger is not a bad idea, the thinking goes. In fact, it's adaptive, Lerner says, and it's a healthier response than fear.

Chronic, explosive anger or a hostile outlook on the world is still bad for you, contributing to heart disease and high blood pressure, research shows.

The new research supports the idea that humans have more than one uniform response to stress and that fear and anger provoke different responses from our nervous systems and the parts of our brain, such as the pituitary, that deal with tough situations.

The results were published in a recent issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

[JSngry]

Who is this fucling bitch who think's she's so goddammed high and mighty that she can go poking around inside people's brains? What's she fucking looking for anyway, huh? A way for her and the pigfuck dicklickers she works for to better find a way to control our minds so we can all get fucked up the ass without so much as a whimper?

FUCK her and her spawn-of-Satan "research". The flames of hell forever barbequeing her no-doubt-cancerous womb will no doubt come as a relief to her.

[JSngry]

Interesting story!

[BruceH]

GODDAMN It!!!! What the HELL?????

Ah, whatever.

[ghost of miles]

You bastards!!!

[ghost of miles]

Yer a bunch of loveable wiseguys, ya really are, though!!!

[BruceH]

Nice avatar, ghost! Jughead was always my favorite of the Riverdale High crowd. (AKA Haverhill High.)

[Ron S]

I'm sort of afraid to respond to this.

[AllenLowe]

I hate you all -

uh oh... suddenly I'm not feeling so good -

Ron, would you call 911?

[Dan Gould]

I've had plenty of opportunities for short-term stress induced anger these past two weeks as Hurricane Wilma trashed approximately 90% of all south Florida traffic signals. As you all know, you are supposed to treat these intersections as four-way stops and it infuriates me to no end to watch people "piggy-back" there way through, like the obnoxious m-f's that they are.

I come up with increasingly creative profanity to describe these people, much to the consternation of my wife, who thinks that it will lead to some dangerous spike of blood pressure or something. I always tell her that it is healthier to spew in this way than to let it fester inside, and now, I have medical research to back me up.

Edited November 3, 2005 by Dan Gould

[AllenLowe]

I just do whatever the voices in my head tell me to do - sorta like Jeffrey Dahmer -

[Eric]

Interesting story!

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LOL (when read in conjunction with post 2)

[Ron S]

Ron, would you call 911?

No, I'd call you. Talking to you would make me angry. And then I'd feel good.

[AllenLowe]

and than I'd be pissed of because you're not calling 911 - and than I'd feel better -

hey, this stuff really works -

[Brad]

If anger is good for you, I must be really healthy

[Ron S]

and than I'd be pissed of because you're not calling 911 - and than I'd feel better -

hey, this stuff really works -

And I'd call you COLLECT--make you feel positively euphoric.

[Ron S]

If anger is good for you, I must be really healthy

You're just an angry young man. Well, at least the angry part.

[BERIGAN]

I  just do whatever the voices in my head tell me to do - sorta like Jeffrey Dahmer -

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So...If you are done killing, you will soon be a reborn Christian. Sorry!

[AllenLowe]

you could also call me up and play Oscar Peterson records over the phone - maybe him with Arturo Sandoval - I would become apoplectic - and live forever -

[ghost of miles]

Nice avatar, ghost!  Jughead was always my favorite of the Riverdale High crowd.  (AKA Haverhill High.)

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Yeah, he was mine too, and probably too much of a role model... probably still is, as I mostly just want to lie around in my study reading, drinking coffee, and listening to jazz CDs... where's my hammock?

[connoisseur series500]

Yeah, he was mine too, and probably too much of a role model... probably still is, as I mostly just want to lie around in my study reading, drinking coffee, and listening to jazz CDs... where's my hammock? 

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Doesn't your job allow you to do that Ghostie?

Damn, I'd like to to that kind of stuff too, only substitute tea for coffee. As it stands, I'll have to wait till retirement to do that when I'll have bad eyesight, no hearing left, and some kind of ailment preventing caffeine intake.

[ghost of miles]

Yeah, he was mine too, and probably too much of a role model... probably still is, as I mostly just want to lie around in my study reading, drinking coffee, and listening to jazz CDs... where's my hammock?  

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Doesn't your job allow you to do that Ghostie?

Come to think of it, it does. Only problem is that when I go home there are leaves to rake and grass to be cut, etc. That's when my inner Jughead comes out these days, I suppose.

[7/4]

Yeah, he was mine too, and probably too much of a role model... probably still is, as I mostly just want to lie around in my study reading, drinking coffee, and listening to jazz CDs... where's my hammock? 

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Doesn't your job allow you to do that Ghostie?

Come to think of it, it does. Only problem is that when I go home there are leaves to rake and grass to be cut, etc. That's when my inner Jughead comes out these days, I suppose.

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Ah, yah see...if I ever get a house again, there's gonna be a rock garden. Forget about lawns.

[BERIGAN]

you could also call me up and play Oscar Peterson records over the phone - maybe him with Arturo Sandoval - I would become apoplectic - and live forever -

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So....do you like Art Tatum?

[tonym]

you could also call me up and play Oscar Peterson records over the phone - maybe him with Arturo Sandoval - I would become apoplectic - and live forever -

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