Angry couples live longer???

I read an article the other day from Scientific American on a subject that is near and dear to my heart—anger.

The title was "Pouting kills. Angry, fighting couples live longer."  Ahh, finally a good excuse to get angry! The article’s point was that after following 192 couples for 17 years they found that couples who supressed their anger when verbally attacked unfarily were twice as likely to die earlier than couples who let their anger out by fighting and then making up.

So here they are identifying an important fact, that emotions have an effect on the physical body. This is true with both good and bad emotions. In this study regarding suppressed anger, it is a very negative effect namely, it shortens your life span.

There is a terrific scripture in Proverbs 17:22 that states this very thing. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones." A happy emotional state is life-giving and emotional hurt is life-damaging. So then why does anger seem to serve some good purpose in all of this?

The answer is in the criteria of the two types of couples. Those couples who supress their anger as opposed to those couples who express their anger and thus release it.

Their theory is that when one spouse verbally attacks the other, unfairly, and the one attacked doesn’t speak up for themselves and supresses their hurt and anger, they grow to resent the other. And if you have experienced suppressed anger, you know it is true. You hold it all in and you can feel the knot in your stomach everytime you think about it even though the event took place years ago.

This suppressed anger leads to resentment and a host of other issues…all destructive.
The lead author of this article, Ernest Harburg calls it, "Stewing in your own juices." That is a good description. I cooked on simmer for many years.

This is in opposite to the other type of couple. One verbally attacks the other, and that other attacks back rather than hold it in. They have a good fight about it, saying everything they want to say to each other, yelling, ranting and raving till they get it all out, and then they make up and move on.

Now, we would probably all agree that holding in anger, resentment, hurt and criticism is damaging to the human body and soul. But is the opposite the best way? Couldn’t there be a better way than fighting and making up, to promote long life amoung couples?

Isn’t there a better way to lay our emotional cards on the table? Do we really have to fight before we can make up? Is there a way to express ourselves without getting all our buttons pushed?

Yes, there is a better way and that process is Embrace or Erase^TM

More tomorrow…