The older we get the more grudges we hold and the more forgiveness we need for those who have trespassed against us. That is how we see it. Those trespassers may in fact feel trampled upon themselves. Be it that you are the trampled or the trampler, one thing for sure is that there is a lot of bad feelings and heartbreak.

My years as a psychiatrist and neurologist and a Father, Husband, and friend to many have taught me that whenever one has bad feelings, heartbreak, they also have anger and not infrequently hold grudges. It is those grudges, more than the heartbreak, that causes the damage, not only to the spirit, but also to the brain itself. The following review hopefully will help in understanding anger and how to let it go. Those who don’t will in fact cause not only damage to those trespassers, but definitely damage to their own bodies and souls.

It is well-known that people who are able to forgive, rather than those who hold onto it, have a decrease in cardiovascular disease, a decrease in blood pressure, and an overall improvement in mood and a decrease in depression.

In one study done, at Hope College in Michigan, 71 people were asked about transgressions that had been done to them. They found that once they had forgiven the transgressor, their blood pressure showed a marked decrease and overall they had decreased coronary artery disease. This is one of many studies.

There are three steps we talk about for forgiveness.

1. Refusing to see oneself as a victim. For instance, if a husband leaves his wife the wife should not consider herself a victim, but rather that she was a devoted person and was stronger than her spouse.
2. Empathize, however, do not condone what had been done. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes so to say.
3. Don’t think forgiving will give full relief. Often one who does the transgression does not see it that way, but remember by forgiving it lets you move on. You do not waste time.

Here some quotes on anger and forgiveness to contemplate:

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

-Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

“Don’t get mad, don’t get even, get ahead.”

-Christopher Matthews

 “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger”

-Proverbs 15:1

“It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.”

-St. Francis of Assisi

ANGER AND THE BRAIN

The question is, does letting go to anger help one’s brain and heart?  In Lancet 2005, they noted in a Harvard-based determinant of MI onset study, that one in forty people with MIs admit to a major anger episode two hours before having an MI.  They equate it to things as depression, chronic stress, anxiety, and moral support help and anger equal to cholesterol and hypertension as risk factors.  

An Isreali biochemist and physician showed that there was an increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier with stress. He took 2 groups of mice, stressed them by dunking them in water, and injected the rodents with a dye measuring its intensity in the autopsied brain. He found that the dye had passed much more readily into the brain of the stressed animals. The importance is that stress increases blood-brain barrier permeability and therefore will subject the brain to many toxins that normally would not enter it.  

In another study, when adverse visual stimuli (horrid pictures) were seen by a conscious patient, there was an increase in neuron firing with an increase in metabolic rate. This means that stress by visual stimuli, that so many youngsters obtain through watching violent video games and movies, can in fact cause agitation to areas of the brain and exhaustion of the neurons there, therefore increasing their stress and cortisol levels that will interfere with good neuronal transmission.

In another study 71 people at the Hope College in Michigan were asked about anger episodes and found that once they had forgiven those who they had been angry at, their blood pressure made a significant drop.  Other studies also showed a marked decrease in cardiovascular disease in those who do not hold grudges. They offered three steps to forgiveness:

1. Refuse to see oneself as a victim. i.e. A wife who’s husband left her felt that he had less character than she.
2. Empathize, but don’t condone.
3. Don’t think forgiving will give full relief.  Often those you did wrong do not see it that way. Forgiving always lets one move on to more constructive purpose in life.  To quote, “Resentment is like you drinking a poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy”.