Do you sometimes have trouble with anger? About 30% of adults in the U.S. report having trouble controlling their anger, and 64% of young people, ages 14 to 21, report that they experience uncontrolled anger, and the average adult experiences anger about 14 times per week, according to data derived from the American Psychological Association (APA). Many surveyed adults believe the nation is generally becoming angrier. If you don’t have anger challenges to some degree, you are not typical. Most of us get regular visits from anger.
It’s all the rage…
With a problem that is so widespread, it isn’t surprising that businesses would pop up to capitalize on it. Commercial “rage cages” are places you can go to “safely” throw and break things to express anger. Apparently expressing anger is thought by some to help control the problem, perhaps because expression of anger does match the feeling with physical activity, and the fight or flight process is played out. Anger is matched with action, so in a way the body is in harmony for a moment. But if you think these rage cages will solve an anger problem, realize the effect is extremely short lived. For some it may even reinforce the idea that anger should be acted out, making anger control even harder. That’s no solution.
Since more younger people are experiencing anger, particularly uncontrolled anger, we can presume that maturity brings with it a better control of expression of anger. That does not mean that maturity brings less anger that is under the surface, however. When we get frustrated with heavy traffic, we are experiencing anger, even though we drive safely and don’t let the anger turn to road rage. When we say things that we shouldn’t, we may be angry with ourselves for making the comments. Anger may be directed outwardly, as in the case of snarled traffic, or inwardly when we are mad at ourselves. Either way, it is having a metabolic effect, and if sustained or occurring frequently, the effect will be unhealthy.
What do you think?
Anger, like fear, comes from perception. When you are in heavy traffic, you are not being physically impacted by the traffic — the impact is (hopefully) all mental. Perception is the only reality that your cells know, because they are connected with the outside world only through internal signals. Some signals can be direct, but ultimately your brain is the master signaler. And your brain is only organ that is able to be angry.
Anger is also like fear in how it invokes the “fight or flight” response. Anger will trigger release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, preparing your body for physical action. Chronic anger increases anxiety and blood pressure, and may manifest in physical symptoms such as headaches and maldigestion. We understand that chronic anger can lead to heart disease or stroke: stress hormones called catecholamines elevate blood pressure while leading to artery-clogging plaque. This may surprise you: it also leads to diabetes.
Of course, part of the elevated diabetes risk is hormonal. The fight or flight hormones inhibit normal insulin response, so more is needed to have the same effect, and this leads to insulin resistance. These stress hormones tend to elevate glucose levels to provide energy for fight or flight. You know that you have more energy when angry, so this is no surprise. All these hormonal reactions are tampering with the normal balance of insulin management, which means pre-diabetes/insulin resistance first, and eventually type 2 diabetes.
But none of this would be happening were the brain not signaling an emergency requiring this response. Anger is therefore harmful to your health. It is even more so as the signals coming from your brain to the rest of your body are quite negative, so your cells are directly receiving negativity as well. If your anger is directed inward, towards yourself, your brain is giving your cells messages of worthlessness. If your anger is directed outward, towards other people or the environment in general, the message to your cells is to sacrifice their energy and focus towards fighting, even though you have no intention of actually fighting. These are also negative signals that should not be chronically broadcast to your cells if you want them to be healthy and happy.
Research
Regardless of the mechanism, research is clear: anger is harmful, and leads to diabetes as well as other health issues. Published in Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers studied the relationship between type 2 diabetes and both self-directed anger (anger-in) and externally directed anger (anger-out). They studied data from 7,898 participants without diabetes in addition to 1,340 people with diabetes but without heart disease. For both groups all forms of anger led to greater risk of diabetes and/or heart disease. Anger-in was particularly associated with triggering type 2 diabetes, and anger-out was significantly associated with diabetes-related heart diseases. (1)
Other research backs this up. In a review study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, researchers added a third anger category: anger-control, where the anger is felt but controlled. Their data review showed that anger-in amplified the relationship between excess fat and insulin resistance, where obesity, already known to be a cause of diabetes, was even more likely to cause it when inward anger is chronic. (2) Waist-hip ratio (WHR), a measurement of centralized obesity in the waist, reacted the most with chronic anger-out to promote insulin resistance. Controlled anger was still harmful, but low anger control was more associated with higher glucose levels, so anger control was helpful.
Anger is considered to be a secondary emotion, because it usually comes after feelings of fear, being threatened, feeling trapped or pressured, or other negative emotions. The thoughts that trigger anger may be the culprit rather than the anger itself. In any case, thoughts generally precede anger. Thoughts from your mind drive your brain.
Your brain is the source of damaging signals that lead to reduced health. But you know all too well that anger, when it appears, does not usually come because you want to be angry. It comes from your thoughts, most of which are probably subconscious. These thoughts were also mostly planted a long time ago, in your early childhood. If you don’t deal with these thoughts which you can’t control with simple willpower, your health is bound to suffer. The last study showed that controlled anger is better than uncontrolled. Rage cages aren’t a key to control it. Better would be to not have the anger in the first place. This would require changing your thoughts. How is that possible? Bad thoughts that are the source of anger need to be replaced by the truth, and replaced especially at the subconscious level. Only by replacement can the previously recorded thoughts be abolished.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
What’s the root of all anger? What is the root of all emotion? It is fear.
Fear is the first emotion demonstrated by the first human beings. Fear is just a separation from Love. “Perfect love drives out fear”
Perception: how you see the world
Perception is a summation of all your experiences and filters that you’ve developed in your brain to survive and to control your environment. Perception is started early in life with every interaction in the world, so let’s say for example you were five years old. A dog jumped on you and started licking you, but it knocked you over and you hit your head. You would have a perception from that point on, a filter in your brain, that categorized dogs as bad and dangerous — not some dogs, but all dogs. Perception is based on survival, so from a survival point of view your mind gives the message to your brain that dogs can hurt you, even though it was the wrong message. The dog was actually licking you and showing affection towards you in over exuberance. but because you fell down and hit your head, you perceived the dog as harmful, trying to hurt you. Now you can see where misperception drives your brain and your physiology. So what you perceived incorrectly in childhood becomes a long-lasting perception that negatively affects physiology the rest of your life.
What is anger? It’s misperception in motion. It’s the child of fear energized to survive.
When we perceive a lack of love, we open the door to the abundance of fear, doubt, and anger.
Where is perception stored?
Perception is stored in brain cells as neural pathways that were developed in a fearful and angry environment. These neural programs were written in the subconscious mind for survival in the world that is separate from Love. Fear is actually a neural pathway as well as anger is a neural pathway.
How do you know this?
Because a pathway, once stimulated, has tremendous energy produced after the stimulus because the neural pathways are already developed — that’s why you have such a tremendous response with such a small trigger at times.
Seeing through the right eyes
Misperception can simply be stated as seeing through the wrong eyes, the eyes of self, the eyes of fear, the eyes of doubt and anger. But you do have another set of eyes: they are called the eyes of the heart, the eyes of the spirit — they are not your physical eyes. They go much deeper than that information that comes in physically — these eyes see things that the five senses do not pick up.
I don’t understand
The mind does not understand the heart, the spirit, because the mind is not from the realm of the heart or spirit. Most everyone has experienced this in their life. We call it intuition or inner knowing. You remember back when you’ve made decisions in your life that made no sense to your mind. In fact, your mind was telling you you’re crazy, and probably the people around you were telling you the same — but something inside of you, deep inside of you in your heart, in your spirit knew something that the mind did not know. You moved forward in that and it worked out extremely well in the end, even though the mind said it wouldn’t.
Rewriting misperception
The interesting thing in psycho-neural programming is that all neural programs are plastic, meaning they’re moldable and changeable — they’re not set in stone, they can be rewritten at any time.
How is this done?
First, with advanced 3-D brain imaging you can see the imbalanced programming in different areas of the brain. Then you begin a treatment protocol designed to rewrite those programs, but this programming must come from a different place, not from the same place that wrote the original program.
This is our signature protocol at Revolution Health & Fitness and has been for the last 40 years. It is called Heart Brain Entrainment therapy in the Revolution protocol. We first isolate the faulty programs and then begin rewriting the new pathways which come from the heart, from the spirit — instead of from the subconscious mind which is the early life programming that most everyone lives with their entire life. This early life programming is the most detrimental factor in their perception, in their relationship life, in their occupational life, in their health and longevity life, and in their spiritual life.
Once set free, always free
Once the neural programs have been rewritten based in truth and true identity, they are no longer stimulated or triggered by an old identity that doesn’t live there anymore. This is the most transformational aspect of your entire life and health because this is the major cause of every negative effect in your life.
Neural reprogramming from the heart benefits:
- Fear pathway is no longer triggered
- Anger pathway is no longer triggered
- Anxiety leaves
- Depression cannot remain
- Self-esteem is greatly improved
- Relationships are transformed
- Occupation comes from a whole different energy source
- Health is optimized
- Spiritual life becomes peace and rest
All of this and immeasurably more is the result of reprogramming neural pathways from the heart, from the Spirit of Love
God IS Love
The kingdom of God is within you within your heart, within your spirit. Your Father in heaven doesn’t have the emotion of love: HE IS LOVE.
What are the Father’s words spoken to you?
You are my son, you are my daughter whom I love with you I am well pleased.
I will NEVER under any circumstances desert you, nor give you up, nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless, nor will I forsake you or let you down or relax my hold on you — absolutely not!
(1) Ward RA, Forget G, Lindekilde N, Deschênes SS, Pouwer F, Schmitz N, Schram M, Burns RJ. Anger Expression Styles, Cynical Hostility, and the Risk for the Development of Type 2 Diabetes or Diabetes-Related Heart Complications: Secondary Analysis of the Health and Retirement Study. Psychosom Med. 2024 Nov-Dec 01;86(9):758-767. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000001344. Epub 2024 Sep 11. PMID: 39258890. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39258890/
(2) Tsenkova VK, Carr D, Coe CL, Ryff CD. Anger, adiposity, and glucose control in nondiabetic adults: findings from MIDUS II. J Behav Med. 2014 Feb;37(1):37-46. doi: 10.1007/s10865-012-9460-y. Epub 2012 Oct 12. PMID: 23065351; PMCID: PMC3652917. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3652917/
