Anger Linked to Illness in Old Age

Learning emotional regulation can help people avoid inflammation and ill health

Anger can induce a physiological response that takes longer to subside as we age. (Peter Ziegler/Pixabay)

Negative emotions aren’t necessarily bad when they can direct our behavior in useful ways. If you’re stuck in traffic and running late, anger with the situation might motivate you to find an alternative route, which will then relieve your stress (though you don’t necessarily need to get angry to be motivated to find a quicker route).

But when anger simmers over in a situation that can’t be changed, it’s less than useful and can even be harmful.

Emotions have physiological effects, such as raising the level of cortisol in your bloodstream, which can affect your health. A new study, published in Psychology and Aging, shows that high levels of anger are associated with poor health in older people.

The Canadian study recruited 226 adults aged 59-93 years. They took blood samples to assess levels of chronic low-grade inflammation and asked the participants to report any age-related chronic illnesses they might have, such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes. The participants also completed a short questionnaire about the level of anger or sadness they experienced in three typical days over a one-week period.

For the analysis, the researchers considered whether age could affect the results. They found that higher levels of anger were associated with inflammation and ill health in the oldest participants (aged 80 and above), but not the youngest participants (59-79 years). Sadness was not associated with inflammation or ill health in either age group.

The study is cross-sectional, meaning that it assessed a group of people at a single point in time. To get a fuller understanding of the relationship between negative emotions and health, we need studies that follow participants for a period of time—so-called prospective observational studies. Future studies should also take into account other factors that might be involved, such as other emotions (both positive and negative), clinical depression, stress, and personality.

Although this new research shows a link between emotion and health in older age, we do not know whether anger causes inflammation and illness or whether health problems make people angrier.

Emotion and Health Across the Lifespan

Negative emotions sometimes can help people overcome life’s challenges, but this latest research suggests that specific negative emotions work differently, particularly across different stages of life, and should be assessed separately.

Older age is a period associated with decline, loss, and reduced opportunities. If a challenge is difficult or impossible to overcome, anger may no longer be useful and may lead to health problems. In contrast, sadness may be psychologically adaptive in older age, helping people accept loss and adjust to it.

These findings can paint a negative picture of emotional experience and its effects in older age. Yet a long line of research has shown that older people are happier. When following people over a 10-year period, positive emotional experiences are shown to increase with age, peaking at 64 and never returning to the levels observed in the average young adult.

Perhaps central to these findings is the idea that, with increasing age, comes both strength and vulnerability. The finding that older people are happier can be explained by age-related strengths in emotional regulation. As we age, we are better at avoiding or reducing exposure to negative situations and stress. We can also better regulate our emotional reaction to external events. But not all negativity can be avoided. In the case of high levels of sustained negative emotion, older adults may be more vulnerable, taking longer to overcome the physiological response.

Letting Go of Negative Emotions and Stereotypes

Negative emotions and health in older age is a relatively new field of research, but substantial research has investigated the relationships between attitudes to aging and health outcomes. Holding negative age-related stereotypes earlier in life can predict cardiovascular problems in later life and brain-aging processes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

For example, believing that decline is inevitable may reduce the chance of a person doing what’s good for their health, such as exercising or taking their prescribed medication. So letting go of anger and other negative emotions and attitudes throughout life may be beneficial for health in later life.

It is important that older people have opportunities to be involved in mutually beneficial intergenerational communities. For example, a program in the United States brings older people into local schools to help young children learn to read. Intergenerational communities offer better social support and understanding of aging for everyone and opportunities for older people to keep active for as long as possible.

Louise Brown Nicholls is a senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom. This article was first published on The Conversation.