You know how they always say that it’s better to get your anger out than let it fester inside? That you should yell, maybe punch something, do something aggressive to get that emotion out? Well…that’s exactly what you shouldn’t do.
Ever heard of Michael Crichton’s book “The Terminal Man?” Haven’t? You should. Go read it when you have some free time. It’s a book about a man with epilepsy who finally receives treatment. The treatment involves electrodes in the man’s brain stimulating the pleasure centers in an effort to ease him out of his seizures. His seizure behavior includes extreme violence and after a while the man commits greater and greater acts of violence on those around him in order to receive the spark to the pleasure centers of his brain.
A reward for being violent? Not the best way to handle things. That’s basically what you’re doing when you vent your anger in an aggressive and violent way. But I know what you’re saying, that’s just a fiction novel, that can’t possibly transfer over into real life.
But it does. A study was conducted among undergraduate students where they were requested to write a short paragraph about abortion, a topic the researchers knew would spark some emotion. They each were handed back the paper with the words “This is the worst essay I have ever read” written across the top. They were then split into two subgroups, one going into a room to punch out their feelings on a pillow, the other going into a room and sitting quietly for two minutes.
Then these students were told they could either punch a button and make the person who had read their essay hear a harsh tone, or wait and hear it themselves. They were allowed to decide the decibel height on the tone. The study showed that those who had gone in with the punching bag and aggressively vented the anger, the group that should have felt better for having done so, put the decibel level much higher than those who had just sat in the room and had time to cool off.
Several other studies of this same sort have been conducted over the years and they all come up with the same answer: aggressively venting your anger DOESN’T help you. It just makes you feel worse in the end. While it may feel good in the moment to kick and scream and have a good old tantrum, it does nothing to actually cleanse us of those negative emotions. It really only makes things worse.
Sources:
http://illinois.edu/lb/files/2009/03/26/9293.pdf
http://www.thenutritionpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/anger2.jpg