Day 4: Anger Sucks

My friend, Cathy Henry, and I were talking one day about relationships and how difficult they can be at times.  I said, "You know, sometimes there are people that suck the life out of you." (I'm sure I am THAT person to someone!) 

She said, "You know what I think sucks the life out of us?  Anger."

That set me to thinking (I tried rewording that sentence in several ways, but no matter what I sounded like I was raised in the country, so I finally just settled on "set me to thinking.")

How many things have I gotten mad about in my life, that I don't actually even remember being mad about now?  And, of the things I can still remember being mad about, how many of those things matter now?

How much of my life has indeed been sucked away by anger, either my own or someone else's directed at me?  I would venture to say a lot.  And by sucked away, I literally mean it has ERODED part of my life.

Anger has a physical, negative effect on the body.  It can create a blood sugar imbalance; it can decrease bone density, suppress the body's immune response and make it susceptible to chronic inflammation; it can suppress thyroid function, slowing down the body's metabolism; it can impair the brain's thinking ability and increase blood pressure.  Anger can raise your heart rate to 180 beats a minute. It can raise your blood pressure from 120 over 80 to 220 over 130, perhaps even higher.  It also immediately dumps a massive amount of cortisol into your body to suppress and manage the stress on your body that stress causes.  And in case you haven't read much about it, cortisol is called the "fat hormone." 


So to recap, anger makes you fat, sick and slow, eventually killing you if you let it.

I'm not saying all anger is wrong.  I get that some of it is justified.  It's an emotion God gave us so it must have some value. 

HOWEVER, laughter (actually the "anticipation of laughter") brings all kinds of crazy healing hormones to your body, beefing up your immune system, circulatory system, skeletal system, even stimulating good health at the cellular level.

I know this is very technical today but here's my point.  Quit wasting time being angry.  I'm talking to all of us, not one of us.  Truly,  5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, you're probably not going to remember what you're angry about today.  And even if you do remember then, it probably won't matter to you. 

All that to say, Laugh.  A lot.  Out Loud.  Until you cry or wet your pants.  And then laugh some more.  Make others laugh.  Enjoy laughing.  Enjoy the laughter of others.  Just laugh. 

(PS - All that technical stuff I borrowed from some website, but forgot to write down where, so I can't give them credit.  Hopefully they won't be angry about that.)