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All negative emotions are not necessarily bad – they can really guide your behavior in a useful way.
If you are caught in traffic and you are late, anger may motivate you to find another route, which will relieve your stress.
But the anger is less useful if you are in the same situation, but you are stuck on a highway without possibility of diverting.
Emotions have physiological effects, such as increasing the level of cortisol in your bloodstream, which can affect your health.
In fact, a new study published in Psychology and Aging shows that high levels of anger are associated with poor health in the elderly.
Canadian scientists recruited 226 adults aged 59 to 93 and took blood samples to assess low-grade chronic inflammation levels.
They asked participants to report any age-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes.
Participants also completed a short questionnaire about the level of anger or sadness that they experienced during typical three days over a period of a week.
For analysis, the researchers examined whether age could affect the results.
Risk of inflammation
They found that the highest levels of anger were associated with inflammation and poor health among older participants – aged 80 and over, but not the youngest – between 59 and 79 years old.
Sadness was not associated with inflammation or poor health in both age groups.
The study is transversal, which means that it evaluated a group of people at one time.
To better understand the relationship between negative emotions and health, we need studies that track participants for a period of time, called prospective observational studies.
Future studies should also take into account other factors that may be involved, such as other emotions, clinical depression, stress and personality.
Although this new research shows a connection between emotion and health in the elderly, we do not know if anger causes inflammation and disease, nor whether health problems make people more angry.
Emotion and health throughout life
Negative emotions can help people overcome life's difficulties, but this latter research suggests that specific negative emotions work differently, especially at different stages of life, and need to be evaluated separately.
Older age is a time of decline, loss and opportunity reduction.
If a challenge is difficult or impossible to overcome, anger may no longer be useful and may even lead to health problems.
On the other hand, sadness can be psychologically adaptive to old age, helping people to accept and adapt to loss.
These results may paint a rather negative picture of the emotional experience and its effects in the elderly. Yet, many studies have shown that older people are happier.
When we follow people over a period of ten years, it is shown that positive emotional experiences increase with age, culminating at age 64 and never returning to the levels seen in the average young adult.
Perhaps at the heart of these results is the idea that, with age, strength and vulnerability are emerging.
The conclusion that older people are happier can be explained by the forces of age-related emotional regulation.
As we age, we avoid or reduce exposure to negative situations and stress.
But all negativity can not be avoided.
In case of high level of prolonged negative emotion, the elderly may be more vulnerable and take longer to overcome the physiological response.
Abandon negative emotions and stereotypes
Negative emotions and health among older adults is a relatively new area of research, but much research has been devoted to the links between attitudes toward aging and health outcomes.
By maintaining negative age-related stereotypes earlier in life, one can predict end-of-life cardiovascular problems and brain aging processes associated with Alzheimer's disease.
For example, believing that this decline is inevitable can reduce the risk of a person doing what is good for their health, such as exercising or taking their medications.
So, giving up anger and other negative emotions and attitudes throughout life can be good for your health in the future.
It is important that older people have the opportunity to engage in mutually beneficial intergenerational communities.
For example, a program in the United States brings seniors to local schools to help young children learn to read.
Intergenerational communities provide better social support and understanding of aging for all, as well as opportunities for older adults to stay active as long as possible.
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