Study Links Anger to Chronic Cold Feet

You’re going to have to bear with us on this one, folks. New research says that the chronic cold feet and hands so many women experience may be rooted—at least a little—in anger and other unresolved emotions.

Now, if this seems a little far-fetched to you, consider this: when you experience certain emotions—and anger is a perfect example—the small blood vessels in your extremities contract. This means that less of your body’s blood gets to your fingers and toes. And that, say researchers, also makes for cold hands and cold feet in people who lack an appropriate outlet for such strong emotions.

In this study researchers asked 148 women to fill out lengthy questionnaires detailing their perceptions of their own emotional responses. They were asked to rank themselves compared to other women in respect to how they respond to certain situations.

The women were also asked about whether they tended to turn their anger outward (and lash out to other people) or whether they tended to internalize their anger.

Then the women were asked questions about their sleeping habits and how often they experienced cold feet or cold hands.

What researchers found was that most women equated femininity with anger suppression. “Nice” women simply don’t show anger, these study participates believe. And women who held this believe also happened to be the women who felt pressured to conform to society’s image of the “ideal” woman.

And that equates to a lot of unresolved anger. Not surprisingly, the researchers found that women with supressed anger were prime candidates for chronic cold feet and hands.

We know that this research has a lot of you rolling your eyes right about now so let’s talk about this. Do you think there’s anything to it? If you’re a woman, do you think anger over society’s expectations have left you with any lingering resentment? Does it play a role in physical symptoms?

And if you’re a man, we’d like to hear your opinions, too. Do you believe in this research? Do you think it holds true for men, too?

Source:

von Arb, M., et al. (2010). Relationship between gender role, anger expression, thermal discomfort and sleep onset latency in women. BioPsychoSocial Medicine.