"What a Jerk!" It May Feel Good to Vent, But It May Not Be So Good for Your Health

Venting seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Especially when your boss was really mean to you and you just had to take it. Blowing off steam is OK, right? Not so much, say researchers...

 Venting About Your Anger Could Instead Make the Emotion Worse

Does venting help? Research shows it may actually worsen your anger. Experts share coping strategies for dealing with anger and road rage.

Benefits of Venting Go Both Ways

Sometimes, “venting,” or airing our grievances, gets a bad rap. Negative connotations are associated with expressing unpleasant experiences or unhappy feelings. And while there may be a fine line between cathartic release and spewing cynicism and insensitivity, I tend to advocate that the act of sharing can be a healthy mechanism for both parties involved.

Does Venting Your Anger Can Help You To Manage It?

Anger is an uncomfortable feeling to experience. Yet, many individuals believe that expressing their anger is the best way to deal with it. Many people who have previously suffered from anger have been urged to let it all out. However, new evidence reveals that expressing anger may not be as beneficial as previously assumed.

Feeling angry? Venting doesn't actually help

It might feel good to vent. But a new study shows it doesn't actually help reduce anger. And neither does jogging. Smash a plate, rant at a friend, intuitively you'd think it might help us calm down by just letting it all out.

How to Vent to Your Friends Without Bringing Them Down

Gentle reminder that your BFF is not your therapist.

The Right Way to Vent at Work

How to safely unload all the stresses and frustrations of this moment, without hurting your career.

Venting Anger (or Not) (2 Letters)

In general, the evidence shows that venting anger tends to make us angrier. And yet, there are times when modulated expressions of anger are necessary and appropriate. On that matter, Aristotle may have the last word: “[A person] is praised for being angry under the right circumstances and with the right people...in the right manner, at the right time...and for as long a time as reason may bid.”

Venting at Work—a Double-Edged Sword

While venting is a natural part of workplace friendships, focusing on the problem and continuously harping on the negative aspects of work experiences can harm well-being. This process is called co-rumination, in which co-workers discuss issues excessively and repeatedly without a clear solution (Rose, 2002). In doing so, such conversations can actually intensify stress and the perceived severity of the problem.

Venting Doesn't Reduce Anger, But Something Else Does, Study Finds

Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a new meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger, finding little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could increase anger.

Venting On Social Media: Healthy Or Crazy?

You’ve seen it, liked it, probably even indulged in it at some point. Welcome to the world of social media venting, where people are not afraid to air strong opinions about each and everything. Ever wondered if there is something much more to venting than letting off steam? According to various studies, it could be a sign of loneliness, depression, anxiety, even borderline personality disorder! But what do millennials think — do they see it as a healthy, harmless expression or a crazy, needy one?

Venting Too Much Can Reduce Your Mental Health

Getting mad at someone can hurt you.

Venting versus Complaining

There’s a fine line between sharing intense negative feelings, called venting, and their morphing into gripes and grumbles that seem to have a life of their own. The former is a useful way to manage emotions in the short-term, while the latter actually considerably adds to emotional distress. Therefore, it pays to be able to distinguish between the two.

Venting won’t help, new study shows—this is the No. 1 way to manage your anger

Venting won’t help you manage your anger, though, according to a recent paper published in Clinical Psychology Review. Researchers studied how effective arousal-increasing activities, like venting or running, and arousal-decreasing activities, like meditation or yoga, are at calming a person down. They analyzed 154 studies involving more than 10,000 participants and found that arousal-decreasing activities were better at helping a person manage their anger. Next time you want to unload your problems on a friend, take a beat and consider meditating instead.

Venting your anger uncontrollably can do more harm than good

Handling anger in the workplace is a difficult business, both subtle and multi-layered, contrary to the rather one-dimensional impression created by Julian Baggini in his feature based on recent research at Harvard medical school.

When Does Venting Stop Being Healthy?

You're going to find that you will end up creating a problem that was never there to begin with

‘Venting’ your anger actually does more harm than good

Anger is a complex emotion that, if not managed properly, can lead to aggression and stress. While the immediate gratification of venting might seem appealing, recent research highlights the ineffectiveness of such approaches in truly diminishing feelings of anger. Instead, strategies that focus on reducing physiological arousal — essentially, calming the body and mind — prove to be far more beneficial.