Chronic Anger, Your Heart, and Your Health Anger is a common emotion. It’s natural, and it’s a part of how you respond to certain circumstances in your environment. It’s how you express extreme
One study that appeared in the Psychology and Aging Journal looked into this phenomenon. Researchers found that there is a link between frequently experiencing anger and increased inflammation and chronic illness for people ages 80 and older. This equated to more instances of heart disease and dementia. The study also looked at other emotions, including sadness, which has also been linked to heart disease and other inflammatory diseases. Through a number of tests involving 200 participants ages 59–93, the researchers concluded anger was far more detrimental to a person’s health than sadness.
displeasure. However, new research suggests chronic anger can be detrimental to your health. Essentially, it comes down to this: If you are stressed, tense, easily irritable, angry, and “snippy” all the time, you may be doing serious harm to your well-being. Studies have already shown a link between anger and the heart. People who showed signs of feeling anger on a regular basis experienced higher rates of heart disease. The first studies on the impact of anger came out in the 1950s and have since been confirmed: Chronic anger physically harms the heart. Why? When you get angry or upset, your brain triggers the release of specific hormones, including cortisol and norepinephrine. These hormones are responsible for triggering the “fight or flight” response. When these hormones enter the bloodstream, your heart rate increases and arteries constrict. This helps to more effectively pump blood to the arms and legs for a fight or a flight. The problem is that when a person is constantly angry or upset, these hormones course through the body more frequently, stressing the arteries and internal organs. As a person ages, this stress can become more damaging.
Ultimately, if you regularly experience rage and frustration, properly dealing with your anger is one of the best things you can do for your health. Every person’s situation is different, and it comes down to getting to the bottom of what makes you angry so you can work through it, whether you work
through it alone or with a mental health professional. Take the steps to prioritize your mental and physical health, and your efforts will pay off tenfold in the long run.
YOU FLUSHED WHAT?
Tales From the Plumb Smart Archives
Most people know how to take care of their pipes and keep them in clean, working order. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Every day, I come across customers who have got themselves in a pickle after some improper plumbing maintenance. But hey, that’s just a day in the life of a plumber. Here are a few of the cases we’ve come across this past summer. Toward the end of July, we got called out to look at a house with a clogged sewer line. The pipes in the second-floor master bathroomwere backed up, and water was seeping out from under the toilet. This indicated the clog was isolated to the master bath plumbing only, and I suspected we would find something like flushable wipes. We took the toilet off the floor to access the toilet drain and ran a sewer snake back and forth through the pipe. It came back every time with “flushable” wipes. When we showed the customers, they swore they didn’t use them. Well, somebody did. TheMythof ‘Flushable’Wipes
inspected the pipe, we found that a section had been repaired years ago, but the pipe was still not perfectly aligned. Either the previous repairmen were not able to get it lined up, or a minor earthquake shifted it. Whatever the case, we got everything back in alignment, and they shouldn’t have any more problems for a while.
That’s Not How WarrantiesWork
Boy, some people really need to think about what they’re flushing down their drains. We pulled cloth rags out of a customer’s sewage ejector pump a few months ago, but that wasn’t even the craziest part. This customer
wanted us to replace it for free! Unfortunately for her, flushing rags down the toilet voids the warranty, and I offered to install a Liberty ProVore grinder pump that will shred anything from diapers to rags for $2,600. Well, she said that was too expensive, so I guess I’ll see her next year for another $1,350. At Plumb Smart, we can handle any kind of plumbing issue you’ve got, no matter how unexpected. So, if your pipes seem like they’re backed up, give us a call today.
Out of Alignment
We finally got to the bottom of the plumbing backups in the West Cobb neighborhood clubhouse. When we video-
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