Jennifer Parlamis

Well, bad news, that doesn't help either.

So researchers at Ohio State University did a very recent 2024 meta-analysis where they looked at 40 years of venting research.

And they found that physiologically arousing activities do not decrease anger.

Verbal venting being one of those physiologically arousing activities.

It raises your heart rate.

It raises your blood pressure.

That does not reduce anger.

What does reduce anger across these 40 years of studies they found is actually activities that reduce your physiological arousal.

Things like meditation, deep breathing, yoga.

So what I'm saying here is really, I want to say one thing really important.

Anger isn't bad.

Anger is actually a motivator to do something.

It has that action tendency.

And anger can get you out of a bad relationship.

It can motivate you to leave a job when you have a toxic boss.

It can allow you to stand up when you think that there's an injustice.

It can have you fight for rights.

So anger is a really useful emotion.

However, we have to know how to regulate it.

Otherwise, we won't be using it, it will be using us.