I find that persistent challenges like mental illness and related homelessness, infant deaths, racial disparities in educational achievement, Asian carp threatening to infest the Great Lakes, and many more make me worry. When I learned how many doctor’s visits were related to stress, the below article made me think about how I could improve my mental health even though I don’t think of myself as an angry person. I hope this article excerpt by Bob Clark originally published in the Tampa Bay Times April 2014, can improve your health in Wisconsin today too.
Anger has no place in a healthy lifestyle. None. Even annoyance, or “anger lite,” can and should be eliminated.
Studies show that somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians result from stress- related disorders. So each well-aimed, well-timed effort to eliminate anger from our thought and experience creates a healthier, more stress-free environment for everybody.
We can defeat anger; we don’t have to just manage it. And it may be more important to all of us than some of us think. Health care is everybody’s business, and preventive health care is proving to be the least expensive and most effective kind of health care reform.
Here are some ways to help banish anger: