Chronic and excessive anger causes the following problems:
- Increases a man’s risk for high blood pressure and heart-disease.
- Stresses relationships and causes women to withdraw.
- Is related to male-type depression.
- Creates separation between men, women, and children.
- Is linked to both high levels of testosterone and low levels.
- Is being played out on a national and international level and increases the risks of conflicts and war.
We hear a lot about testosterone in the news including these headlines:
- Men’s testosterone levels largely determined by where they grow up
- 1 in 4 Men Over 30 Has Low Testosterone
- Why all men should be concerned about declining testosterone
Here are some helpful facts about testosterone and how levels relate to anger in men.
- Testosterone is an androgen, a male sex hormone, though females need it too.
- High levels of androgens (such as those used by athletes) can increase anger (‘roid rage).
- Most anger problems in men are caused by decreased levels of testosterone.
- Low testosterone is associated with low libido, loss of erections, irritability anger, fatigue, and low energy.
- Depression can result from low testosterone.
- Testosterone levels can also go down when we become depressed.
I wrote two popular books that detailed the ways in which anger, low-testosterone, and depression interact. In The Irritable Male Syndrome, I detail the four primary symptoms including:
- Hypersensitivity (men are very reactive and women feel like they’re walking on eggshells).
- Anxiety (men are often worried about everything and women often try and fix him).
- Frustration (men often have short fuses and fume or explode. Women are often afraid and withdraw).
- Anger (can be explosive or controlled, but it is always destructive)
In Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome I answer the questions that women and men had including:
- How can a man change from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde seemingly overnight?
- What cause irritable male syndrome?
- What do I do when he says, “I still love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore?
- How do I help him when he refuses to talk?
- What do women do that triggers male anger?
- How do I get through to him when he refuses to see that he has a problem?
- Why angry men are often depressed?
- How can taming the male anger dragon save the relationship?
These issues are personal for me. My irritability and anger contributed to the ending of my first marriage and my picking an angry and abusive woman for my second. Anger has created untold pain in my life. When I finally understood the connections between anger, depression, and low-testosterone, my life turned around. I met Carlin and we’ve been together for nearly 40 years now.
I’m ready to share what we’ve learned with others. I’ve been focused on helping men and the women who love them for more than 40 years. I have written 15 books including The Irritable Male Syndrome, Male vs. Female Depression, and Surviving Male Menopause. I’m offering a class that gives you the tools to keep anger from undermining a man’s health and threatening his love life. If you’d like to know more, drop me a note via email and put “anger class” in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you.
This article first appeared on Jed’s blog.
