{"id":117993,"date":"2026-10-19T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=import-25497-venting-doesnt-reduce-anger-but-somethin-202610190915"},"modified":"2026-10-19T03:23:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:23:58","slug":"venting-doesnt-reduce-anger-but-something-else-does-according-to-a-review-of-154-studies-25497-g01","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/venting-doesnt-reduce-anger-but-something-else-does-according-to-a-review-of-154-studies-25497-g01\/","title":{"rendered":"Venting Doesn’t Reduce Anger, but Something Else Does, According to a Review of 154 Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

When someone is furious, the advice is almost always the same: let it out. Scream into a pillow, go for a hard run, vent to a friend until the steam is gone. It is such a familiar idea that most people never question it. Researchers did, and after combing through more than 150 studies, they reached a conclusion that turns that advice on its head.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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What did the researchers find?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The analysis, published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review<\/em> in 2024, pooled 154 studies involving 10,189 participants of different ages, genders, cultures and ethnicities. It was led by Sophie Kj\u00e6rvik of Virginia Commonwealth University and Brad Bushman, a communication professor at Ohio State University, as reported by ScienceAlert<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The verdict on venting was blunt. “Venting anger might sound like a good idea, but there’s not a shred of scientific evidence to support catharsis theory,”<\/strong> Bushman said. In some studies, venting even made anger worse. “Any good feeling we get from venting actually reinforces aggression,” he added, according to Earth.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why doesn’t blowing off steam work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Because anger is a state of high physiological arousal: a faster heart rate, tense muscles, rising blood pressure. Activities that keep that arousal high tend to keep the anger going too. That is why the researchers found that most arousal-boosting activities did not reduce anger, and sometimes increased it. Jogging, often recommended to “run it off,” was the activity most likely to increase anger in the studies they reviewed.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I wanted to debunk the whole theory of expressing anger as a way of coping with it,” Kj\u00e6rvik said.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what actually calms anger down?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Activities that bring arousal down. The review found that the following helped reduce anger:<\/span><\/p>\n