Why women handle anger better with age

If you are reading this, the chances are you or someone dear to you is hot-headed. While anger is quite a common emotion, not everyone responds to it in the same way. Some tend to manage it better than others. Anger, when it comes to women, may differ, not just in expression but also in how it's internalized and processed. Why? Well, age appears to play a key role in this. A new analysis found that chronological and reproductive age both have a significant effect on women's level of anger and their ability to manage it.A new study published in Menopause, found the link between women’s anger and age. So, what changes? Let’s take a look.

Anger in women

Though there has been a lot of research around understanding women’s experiences with depression during the menopause transition and early menopause, there is little research on how perimenopausal women experience emotional arousal, such as anger. The new study found that women’s anger traits significantly decrease with age starting at midlife.

What is anger

Anger is defined as antagonism toward someone or something, often accompanied by a propensity to experience and express it indiscriminately. This is different from hostility, which refers to a fear-eliciting emotion. Some describe hostility as constantly being ready for a fight.

The study

While researchers have explored anger and its health implications in midlife women since 1980, most of it were has focused on heart disease, including hypertension and coronary artery disease. Further research on women and heart disease found that increasing trait anger (anger proneness) was linked with increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure over a 3-year period.The studies that followed found that women with higher anger levels were more likely to develop thicker artery walls (a sign of heart disease) 10 years later. Anger has also been linked to depression, with women showing more severe depressive symptoms during menopause, especially those using hormone therapy. However, to date, no study so far explored how anger traits change throughout the transition phase of menopause. This new analysis, which involved over 500 women aged 35 to 55, aimed to explore how age and reproductive stages affect women’s experiences of anger.By looking at the new participants, the researchers concluded that chronological age plays a crucial role in most anger measures, including anger temperament, anger reaction, anger expressed aggressively, and hostility. They found that these forms of anger decreased significantly with age. Only anger suppressed was not related to age. Also reproductive aging also influenced anger. They found that there is a reduction in anger after the late reproductive stages. All these points towards the fact that emotional regulation improves during midlife.

What are the experts saying

“The mental health side of the menopause transition can have a significant effect on a woman’s personal and professional life. This aspect of perimenopause has not always been acknowledged and managed. It is well recognized that fluctuations in serum hormone concentrations during the postpartum period, as well as monthly fluctuations in reproductive-aged women corresponding with their menstrual cycles and during perimenopause, can result in severe mood swings associated with anger and hostility. Educating women about the possibility of mood changes during these vulnerable windows and actively managing symptoms can have a profound effect on overall quality of life and health,” Dr. Monica Christmas, associate medical director for The Menopause Society.