This explains a lot . . .
Anger linked to women’s heart problems
Here’s an excerpt:
“Researchers found that women who tended to outwardly express their anger had a higher risk of artery blockages if they also had one of several other heart risk factors: older age, diabetes or high cholesterol. Other measures of hostility, like suppressed anger and hostile temperament in general, were unrelated to the risk of coronary artery disease.”
No wonder I have heart problems. I rarely discuss this, but several years ago I was diagnosed with three individual heart problems: a heart murmur (likely the result of a high fever that I had with a childhood illness), mitral valve prolapse (pretty common — although I have to take 9 antibiotics when I go to the dentist for any procedure. I’m skeptical as to whether the antibiotics are really necessary, but I’d rather take them than have a heart attack during a cleaning), and finally, the ever ominous vacillating aortic valve block. The latter is the most serious one, and the one that I’m most reminded of when I feel small random tremors. At this point there could be more issues, but I’m not excited about getting strapped up to another EKG machine to figure it out, only to give myself something else to worry about.
Funny story — during the course of my diagnosis, the MD sent me for a chest x-ray to make sure that there wasn’t a hole in my heart. (Which would ALSO explain a lot). I was sitting in the waiting room, and way across the room, there was a guy who was coughing so hard that I thought he’d spit up a lung. He began talking to me from 50 feet away, and asked me why I was there. I told him about the potential hole in my heart, and he casually mentioned, between hacks, that he was being tested for tuberculosis. Yeah . . . nothing like catching TB in the hospital. Needless to say, I kept my distance. Oh, and turns out I didn’t have a hole in my heart (I only behave as if I do. :-)).
The irony of the article about anger and heart trouble is that, after a severe betrayal by a “friend,” I made the decision that I would express my anger instead of keeping it bottled up inside. I used to stew in my own juices over something that pissed me off — just smile and take it — and finally decided that it wasn’t a good idea because I was creating toxins in my body. My herbalist told me (in Chin-English) that excessive toxins in the body can be poisonous and cancer-causing, so I decided to make a change.
Ever since, my policy has been to let it out . . . express everything, and give some ownership to the person that caused your anger. Honestly, it was the most liberating decision that I could have made. At first, it felt good just to let it out. And then I developed a reputation for letting it out, which meant that people were far less likely to do stupid stuff, because they knew they would hear about it. One of the things that’s so great about this blog is that it’s my own personal forum for bitching about things that I don’t always verbally express.
As an aside, although I love having an audience and receiving comments, the only problem with having an audience for this blog is that I still feel like I censor myself from time to time, based on who I think might be reading it. Sometimes I forget that people actually read this thing until one of my friends calls and requires clarification about something that I’ve written here. The good news is that my parents aren’t technologically savvy enough to read this blog — it would give them FAR more information about my life than they need. Obviously my co-workers know nothing about the blog. The BF rarely reads it, or at least he doesn’t tell me if he reads it. If I had to guess, I would assume he’s not a regular reader.
Anyhoo . . . back to the point . . . so, based on the posted article, it seems that it might be better to remain quiet about my anger. I don’t really see that happening anytime soon. I’ve grown accustomed to extreme expression — particularly when I’m behind the wheel of the car, driving my usual breakneck speed, and a PT Cruiser (i.e. mini-hearse) cuts in front of me only to putt along at a mere 25 mph. I’m getting road rage all over again just thinking about it.
Yep, I’m going to have to risk heart disease.
