Is Exercising While Angry Dangerous? 5 Healthy Hacks for Emotional Rescue

Wage inequality. The cancellation of your favorite podcast. The election and all its nasty turns. The modern world is spilling over with reasons to make us irate. Think a long run or sweat-soaked double session at SoulCycle will be cathartic? Not so fast. A new study shows that both strenuous workouts and emotional upheaval can negatively impact your heart—and it’s especially perilous to combine the two.

The study, out of McMaster University in Canada, looked at nearly 12,500 men and women who had experienced their first heart attack. Researchers interviewed subjects about their circumstances before having cardiac arrest; 14.4 percent reported feeling angry or emotionally upset and 13.6 percent said they were engaged in physical activity. The scientists determined that those who pushed themselves physically doubled their risk for a heart attack, and those who were dealing with heavy emotions as well as engaging in rigorous exercise tripled their chances of suffering from one. Most shockingly, taking into account people’s age and general fitness level didn’t alter results.

Andrew Smyth, M.D., a researcher with McMaster’s Population Health Research Institute who led the study, says that the biggest cause for concern was when people broke from routine and pushed themselves harder than they were used to. “The key point here is that any kind of physical exertion that is outside of a person’s usual routine likely carries a risk,” he says. “For example, someone who cycles 10 miles a few times per week may think that a seven-mile cycle does not constitute heavy exertion, but someone who hasn’t cycled for quite a while may consider that to be heavy exertion.”

Anger’s physical effects include raised blood pressure and heart rate, and sweating it out isn’t always the antidote. Here, five habits to take up when you need to calm down.

Meditate
In addition to reducing stress and keeping our brains young, meditation has been shown to lower blood pressure. A recent study showed that people with heart disease who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation were almost half as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or die as non-meditators. One of the most popular classes at New York meditation studio MNDFL is called MNDFL Emotions, designed to help people deal with negative feelings. “One thing you want to do when working with anger is drop the story line and feel the energy of emotion itself,” says Lodro Rinzler, the studio’s cofounder. “We tend to act out and want to text someone, or tamp it down and ignore it, or distract ourselves with drinking, sex, or binge watching Netflix. The middle way is to feel the emotion itself. If we look at it, we can realize it’s not as solid and real as we thought.”

Take a Few Deep Breaths
Breathing exercises lower blood pressure as well as cardiovascular risk. MNDFL’s Rinzler says he uses this hack when he needs an instant reset. “Just focus on in through the nose and out through the mouth,” he suggests. The Apple Watch Series 2 comes with a Breathe app that reminds wearers to take a time-out and engage in a one- or five-minute round of controlled breathing, guided by a blue icon that grows and shrinks with each inhalation and exhalation.

Try Acupuncture and Aromatherapy
“In Chinese medicine, anger is a symptom of an underlying disharmony that could have any number of origins like stress, overworking, or eating an improper diet,” says Oceana Baity, an acupuncturist and integrative wellness practitioner in New York City. “Liver 3—which is a pressure point on the top of the foot—is a good choice. A home treatment I often recommend to patients is to rub therapeutic-grade lavender on that point or the soles of their feet. Lavender calms the nerves and soothes the emotions.” (Baity recommends DoTerra lavender oil.)

Do Yoga—Unless You Hate It
Yoga’s benefits go beyond improving our flexibility and headstands. It lowers the heart rate and provides a sense of calm. “Your yoga mat is like a microcosm of the macro,” says San Francisco yoga instructor Lesley Desaulniers. “It’s a safe and powerful way of experimenting with having resilience and staying calm in the face of what might be perceived as stressful situations. Whether it’s putting your foot behind your head or dealing with a big emotion like anger, if you can practice witnessing it rather than feeling it, you can stay cool.” Desaulniers recommends seated-forward folds, back twists, and child’s pose for their calming powers. Those averse to yoga might not want to bother seeking solace on a sticky mat, however. “Some people do not like yoga, and it may only further increase the anger or frustration,” Dr. Smyth says.

Read a Novel
A new area of research is looking at the myriad ways fiction stimulates the brain. A fiction habit has been proven to increase our empathy (young Harry Potter fans are more tolerant of immigrants and gay people), and brain scans reveal that engaging with books can alter our state of mind. Calming authors to try: Rachel Cusk, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Laurie Colwin, Barbara Pym, and Sharon Olds.

 

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