Why Anger Damages Your Lungs

Higher levels of hostility were also associated with a faster rate of the natural decline in lung function that occurs with aging.

Each point increase in hostility score was associated with a loss of FEV1 — the volume of air that can be forced out of the lungs in one second, and a measure of lung power — of 9 ml a year compared with men whose hostility levels were lower.

The authors point out that hostility and anger have been associated with cardiovascular disease, death, and asthma, and that previous research has suggested that changes in mood can have short term effects on the lungs.

Anger and hostility will alter neurological and hormonal processes, which in turn may disturb immune system activity, producing chronic inflammation, suggest the authors.

An accompanying editorial comments that the physiological components of anger and stress overlap, and stress is well known to affect the immune system.

“Indeed it is hard to find a disease for which emotion or stress plays absolutely no part in symptom severity, frequency, or intensity of flare-ups,” writes Dr Paul Lehrer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, USA.

Chronic anger may permanently alter the normal body responses to and physical and psychological stressors, he suggests, and add to “wear and tear.”

But he cautions that associations do not necessarily equate to cause. “Personality, as well as physiology, can change over time, and deterioration in health and physical function can lead to negative emotion as well as vice versa, including for respiratory diseases.”

Why Anger May Be Hard On Your Lungs - Page 2  was originally published on blackdoctor.org