Dear Laura:

I consider myself a pretty together person when it comes to working out and eating healthy food. Yet for some reason my moods are not the best. I find I get angry easily and react when others tick me off. For example, when I am driving I get really impatient and end up being really stressed and agitated when I get to work. I feel better after I work out, but I don't hit the gym until after work. Any ideas?

Thanks.

David S., Rochester, N.Y.


Dear David:

Gosh, your not perfect? David, it is unfortunate that so many of us have the same problem. I really feel a big part of our journey through life has to do with conquering those lower emotions and staying in a "higher" state of being. It's super that you realize it' s not healthy to "go there". To be truly healthy as a "whole", you do need to conquer those negative feelings. Read on for some motivation to kick the anger habit.

Here's a bit of background on how negative and positive emotions have an impact upon you... body, mind and more! Warning: This information may change your mind next time you get yourself worked up when someone cuts you off while driving to work!

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There's no doubt -- life as an actress can be stressful. And Raven-Symone is the first to admit that. In fact, the actress even goes so far as to say, "I do have anger issues," but she doesn't like to yell at anybody, so she's found another way to get out her frustrations -- boxing.

When she's angry at someone, Raven-Symone said, "I picture that person's face that I want to yell at and I hit it repeatedly [with my] mitt."

I've actually done the same thing on a number of occasions -- beating the hell out of a heavy bag somehow makes me feel better. However, running is a great stress reliever as well. What form of exercise helps you clear your head, or puts you in a good mood?

When emotions run high, a lot of people run for the fridge. Emotional eating is a complex habit. For many people, it's a habit that they've practiced for years and years -- maybe even since their childhood. Many people who eat due to emotions such as sadness, anger, depression, boredom, stressed, or loneliness, are fully aware that they are emotional eaters. Even though they're cognizant of their eating habits, in the heat of the moment it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between real hunger and emotional triggers. But knowing your body and finding healthier outlets for your emotions is important for health.

Everyday Health shares some tips on determining real, physical hunger from emotion-based hunger:

• Physical hunger builds gradually, causes your stomach to growl, isn't accompanied by a sense of compulsion, occurs hours after you last ate, and goes away after eating.
• Emotional hunger develops suddenly, is a more mental craving (when you "get a taste" for something), makes you feel like you urgently need to eat, is unrelated to the last time you ate, often has specific cravings, persists even when you're full, and leaves you feeling guilty after eating.
  

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Anger is bad for the body. Studies have long linked this maddening emotion with high blood pressure, increased heart rate, soaring stress hormones, and decreased immune system response. Stress can also lead to lack of sleep and unhealthy habits, like smoking, drinking, and poor eating practices.

The experts at the spa destination Canyon Ranch say the best anger solution is not to express or repress the feeling but to create less of it.

Say you're driving to an appointment, you're short on time, and the driver ahead of you is making slow progress, causing you to get caught behind several red lights. It would be easy to get angry because driving is depersonalized -- we're indifferent to other drivers' needs because we don't know them. Practicing empathy, though, can prevent anger from unfolding. Try to imagine the other driver as someone you know and love. It might just make it easier to understand the reasons for the drivers' actions.

Read on for a calming five-step strategy for defusing anger.

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When my nephew was away at college he became very depressed. Frighteningly depressed. It took the whole family by surprise at first because we didn't really see it coming. He had friends, he had just switched his major to something that suited him much better. He had a great apartment and had just gotten a dog. It seemed like everything was going well for him. But then, wisely, he drove to his parent's house one night and told them he needed help. And he did. While he seemed fine over the phone, what the family didn't know was that hours away at school he wasn't seeing any of his friends, he wasn't going to classes, and he was too depressed to even let his dog outside much of the time. After his depression was out in the open we were all able to look back and see the signs that we missed. We thank goodness for the strength he had and for his ability to ask for help. And we've all kicked ourselves a bit for not seeing the red flags that were right in front of us. Had we seen those warning signs, we could have helped him earlier. Today my nephew is doing wonderfully; he's graduated from college and landed an awesome job. Managing his clinical depression is a part of his daily life; he understands his triggers and manages his symptoms well.

Studies show that 2 out of every 100 children and 8 out of every 100 adolescents struggle with depression. While full-blown depression usually starts in adulthood (as it did with my nephew), low-grade depression may start in childhood or teenage years. And it's important to recognize those signs and get help early on.

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Well, it depends on the kind of anger we're talking about here. A new study links the healing process with anger. Apparently hotheads who fly off the handle are less likely to heal faster than those people who at least express their anger without getting rowdy.

You can blame cortisol -- this stress hormone makes us more liable to get sick. But depending on how we deal with anger, cortisol can interfere with how our bodies recover. One hundred volunteers were given blisters on their forearm (blame the researchers). By screening their behavior, scientists were able to measure the healing speed based on whether or not they lost their temper or simply expressed their anger in a controlled way.

People who were "hotheads" took longer to heal the blister -- more than 4 days actually. The study suggests that if you want to get well faster, then it is best to chill out and not lose your temper.

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I'm no parent, but anyone who has been around toddlers knows that temper tantrums are pretty normal in child development. If you are a mom or dad, perhaps you use tantrums as a moment to teach, like this article suggests. But there's another claim that comes from the article which may pique the interest of parents (or parents-to-be).

According to the study, children who go through long and violent tantrums are more prone to develop depression. These observations include tantrums that result in self-injury, bouts that are marked by violence to others, or tantrums where the children cannot calm themselves down without help. The study also observed risks when this aggression occurred more than 5 times a day, 20 times a month, or more than 25 minutes at a time.

It's possible this behavior may also be outgrown as the child gets older. If you're a parent, and you observe these tantrums, did your child grow out of it? Researchers encourage parents to seek medical assistance if the behavior doesn't let up. But you know your own kids better than men in lab coats, so take these results with a grain of salt.

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How do you deal with anger? Do you repress it, or do you let it out? Do you struggle with weight loss? These two questions might seem unrelated but that's not the case, according to this article from Glee Magazine, which alleges that how you deal with anger is crucial to your ability to lose weight. More specifically, those who bottle their anger find it more difficult to lose or maintain their weight because they use food as a way of dealing with their uncomfortable emotions.

I think this idea makes a lot of sense, and can be applied to how someone deals with any type of emotion. Many overeaters are emotional eaters, after all, and tend to binge when emotions get overwhelming. Releasing emotions in an healthy manner is important to overcoming any sort of addictive or bingeing behaviour.

What do you think of this hypothesis?

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Anger is a destructive emotion, and I'm sure the world would be a better place without it. And, according to eDiets, the key to ridding ourselves of anger may lie in exercise. Working out, they say, can help you transform your angry energy in to peaceful, productive energy.

What do you think about this theory? I agree whole-heartedly. My life has been better in every way since I started making exercise a priority, and when I use my energy towards working out, I feel better physically and emotionally. I used to have a bunch of pent-up energy that not only kept me awake at night, but would often turn into negative energy, which would be expressed full force when I was, say, driving or arguing with a co-worker.

What do you think? Does exercise help you let go of anger?

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It's a pretty well-known fact that obesity is on the rise among kids in a number of countries including the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. Not only do parents and kids need to commit to eating healthier, they also need to get way more exercise.

Normally, I would encourage any number of activities that would get kids moving, but I think that the pole-fitness classes being offered at gyms in Sydney, Australia, are absolutely ridiculous. The idea is that pre-teens and teens can take non-sexualized classes that are designed to build muscle strength and increase fitness and confidence using exercises done on a traditional-looking pole-dancing bar.

While supporters of the class say that they're a great way for kids to get fit and add that they're "not slutty", I think that for any exercise involving children, the words "not slutty" shouldn't come up at all. What's wrong with getting outside for a bike ride, joining a soccer team or taking a swimming class? There are so many other ways for kids to increase their fitness, I don't see why pole-classes are even necessary.

What do you think? Is any exercise good exercise for kids or are kids' pole-classes totally inappropriate?

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There are so many differences between how men and women are treated in the world, and here's another: When angry, men are admired, whereas women are thought to be irrational. What do you think about this? I for one do believe that women are perceived this way; so often, both men and women are quick to label an angry woman as a witch (or another word that rhymes with that.)

I suppose it's an evolutionary response--historically, powerful, commanding males were the most successful, while women who were good at mothering were favoured. But that notion is outdated and unfair -- a lot has changed since the caveman ages and so should how we women are regarded.

I suppose not getting angry is a solution that women can look towards, but how likely is that? How can powerful women command the same admiration as men when we speak our minds?

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The commonly-held belief is that anger and rational thought don't exactly go hand in hand. So, if follows that when you lose your temper, you're probably not making the best decisions, right?

Apparently not. A recent study from the University of California, Santa Barbara, says that past research showing that angry people were less analytical was, essentially, missing the point. They believed, that instead of making "snap decisions" based on stereotypes or faulty logic, incensed people were actually doing a better job of thinking quickly and weeding out unnecessary information than their calmer counterparts.

At first, it doesn't seem to make sense, as you'd expect a calmer person to more thoroughly weigh all the options and come to a more thoughtful decision. But when people are a little peeved, they're more motivated to find the best solution as quickly as possible.

Other studies have also found that an appropriate amount of anger can be a positive thing. It helps people feel confident, and in control -- both of which can empower a person to make better decisions.

So don't beat yourself up the next time something trips your trigger -- getting a little angry never hurt anyone, and it might just make you more productive.

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Do you ever feel like you're going to just lose it? Someone cuts you off in traffic and you feel like you're literally seeing red or you find out that a "friend' has been gossiping about you behind your back? Getting angry is totally natural and there are probably a million and one things that can set a person off but the important thing is how you deal with your anger.

I admit that the one thing that always gets me is rude drivers. Someone who speeds up when you put your signal light on to change into their lane so that you can't get in, someone who doesn't bother to use their own signals (they're there for a reason people!), any driver who doesn't offer a thank-you wave after being let in -- the list goes on and on. On more than one occasion, and I'm not proud to admit it, I've lost it and cursed and given nasty gestures. But it's never gotten me anywhere.

If you find yourself having a similar negative reaction to a situation that angers you, it might be a good idea to take a look at some of these tips on anger management. Some may seem a bit silly at first, especially if you're in a rage. But you'd be surprised at how calming deep breathing is and how satisfying it is to go for a run instead of engaging in a yelling match. In the end, you'll come out the biggest winner.

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Recently the disease lupus has come to the front of headlines with the American Idol contestant Leslie Hunt. You can't catch lupus from another person. It isn't cancer, and it isn't related to AIDS. It is an autoimmune disease where the immune system is out of control and it attacks healthy tissues in your body and not germs. The disease can involve many parts of the body such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. Some of the most common symptoms of lupus are, red rash or color change on the face, often in the shape of a butterfly across the nose and cheeks, painful or swollen joints, unexplained fever, chest pain with deep breathing, swollen glands, rheumatoid arthritis, extreme fatigue, unusual hair loss, pale or purple fingers or toes from cold or stress, sensitivity to the sun, low blood count, depression, trouble thinking, and memory problems. Other signs are mouth sores, unexplained seizures or convulsions, hallucinations, repeated miscarriages, and unexplained kidney problems.

What causes lupus is unknown and there is no cure for the disease. Anyone can get lupus but 9 out of 10 people who have it are women. Talk to your doctor and take a history of your health problems. Many people have lupus for a long time before they find out they have it. I wasn't diagnosed with it until I was 45 years old. It's important that you tell the doctor about all your symptoms. This information, along with a physical examination and the results of blood, urine, and other laboratory tests, helps the doctor decide whether you have lupus or something else.

People with lupus have limited energy and must manage it wisely. Ask your health care team about ways to cope with fatigue. Learn to pace yourself and set realistic goals. Consider support groups to help you over come the depression, anger, and sadness that comes with the disease. Put yourself on a very healthy diet that will help boost the immune system and cut down on inflammation in the body. Try to alleviate stress as much as possible and do moderate daily exercises to build up joint strength. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with lupus learn more about the disease at the Lupus Foundation of America.

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There have been numerous studies linking anger to heart disease, but these have focused primarily on men. Researchers have recently discovered, however, that there may be a similar link for women.

But it's a little complicated. The findings, published in the Journal of Women's Health, suggest that while women who express their anger outwardly have a higher risk of artery blockages, that's only true if they also have another heart risk factor -- older age, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Additionally, suppressed anger or a generally hostile temperament doesn't seem to have any effect coronary health.

So why is anger only dangerous if it's outwardly expressed? According to Dr. David S. Krantz, one of the study authors, this may be the most "toxic" aspect of a hostile temperament.

It will be interesting to see where this research goes, as further investigation may help in diagnosing and treating coronary disease. For the time being, however -- whether you're a man or woman -- I think it's safe to say that reducing the anger in your life is almost certainly good for you in one way or another.

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