Do you feel as if anger is coursing through your veins? Well, that’s not too far off, according to new research.

Feelings of anger negatively affect vascular health, according to a study published on Wednesday in the American Heart Association journal.

"This study aimed to understand, 'Why does this happen?'

In the randomized experiment, researchers divided 280 participants and gave them a task that made them recall feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, or neutrality for eight minutes.

Several times after the task, researchers took measures of the participants’ vascular health.

Lead study author Dr. Dashi Shimbo, a professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Columbia University in New York City, said, "There have been some studies in the past that linked feelings of anger, anxiety, and sadness to risks of future heart disease."

Shimbo said that the sadness and anxiety tasks did not show a significant change in those markers compared to the neutral task—but anger did.

He added, "The harmful effects of anger on health and disease may be due to its detrimental effects on vascular health itself."

Dr. Joe Eppinger, associate professor of cardiology and director of clinical analytics at the Smidt Heart Institute in Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the research, said although the new research is not the first study linking emotions to cardiovascular effects, it highlights how the connection works.

Eppinger said, "This is one of the first good randomized studies and placebo-controlled studies that has really shown us that there are acute changes in vascular function that happen in response to the emotions we feel."

How can 40 minutes turn into a longer problem?

Shimbo said researchers in this study noted three main ways that anger impacted vascular health.

First, it made it harder for blood vessels to dilate in response to ischemia, or constriction, adding that anger also affected cellular injury markers and their ability to repair themselves.

After the eight-minute task related to anger, the effects on vascular function lasted for up to 40 minutes.

That may not seem too bad on its own, but Shimbo said we should be concerned about the cumulative effect.

He continued, "We expect that if you’re someone who gets angry repeatedly, you are chronically damaging your blood vessels." "We did not study this, but we speculate that these types of chronic insults from anger can lead to chronic detrimental effects on the vasculature."

Don't clench your teeth during anger outbursts

Another question the study did not investigate, but should be raised afterwards, is: What can you do about it?

Eppinger said that anger is a human emotion, and you can’t avoid feeling it all together.

Dr. Brett Ford, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said in a previous CNN piece that the best way is to learn to process feelings of anger without allowing them to escalate.

Deborah Ashway, a licensed clinical mental health counselor in New Bern, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study, suggested asking yourself: "What might be blocking your energy or thoughts? What are you protecting yourself from? What needs to be fulfilled that isn’t?"

She added, "Once you realize that, you’re in control of it; it’s no longer controlling you," further suggesting that this is where you can determine how to move forward.

Shimbo said this recent study on how anger affects the body may help encourage those struggling with excessive anger to seek behavioral treatment.

There may be ways—like exercise or medication—to address the harmful effects of anger on the vascular system, he speculated.

Eppinger stated, "Understanding the mechanism is the first step in being able to help treat it. This isn’t about shying away from anger; we will all experience anger, but it's about finding ways to manage and reduce it."