BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
Slamming tires with a sledgehammer, pummeling a punching bag, running yourself into the ground when you’re furious: the premise behind rage workouts is that intense physical exertion gives anger somewhere to go. A 2024 review of 154 studies covering more than 10,000 participants suggests it doesn’t work that way.
The review, led by Dr. Sophie L. Kjærvik of the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies and Dr. Brad Bushman of Ohio State University, compared calming activities like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga against vigorous ones like jogging, cycling, and hitting a punching bag. Calming activities reliably reduced anger and aggression across genders, ages, and cultures. Vigorous exercise was overall ineffective at reducing anger, and in some cases appeared to make things worse.
“Exercise has many well-known benefits for physical and mental health,” Kjærvik notes. “But if your goal is to cool down when you’re angry, vigorous exercise is not the best choice.”
Why the fight-or-flight state is the problem
When you’re angry, the body is already in fight-or-flight: heart rate elevated, muscles tense, adrenaline circulating. Calming activities like deep breathing, mindfulness, and slow-flow yoga interrupt that by slowing the heart rate and releasing muscle tension. Intense exercise doesn’t. “Doing intense exercise can keep your body in that heightened state rather than helping it calm down,” Kjærvik says.
Vigorous exercise may keep the body primed for anger rather than helping it come down. Bushman’s summary is blunt: “You should definitely exercise. It is good for your heart. But it is an ineffective means of managing anger. It will prolong or perhaps even increase angry feelings and aggressive impulses.”
Not all vigorous exercise is equal
Ball sports were an exception. They appeared to reduce anger, possibly because they’re social and distracting enough that there’s less mental space to keep replaying whatever set you off. Jogging was a different story: it raises physical arousal while leaving the mind free to ruminate on the thing that made you angry in the first place.
“Interestingly, not all exercise had the same effect,” Kjærvik notes. “Ball sports seemed to help reduce anger, possibly because they are fun, social, and distracting. Jogging, meanwhile, was associated with higher levels of anger. This may be because jogging increases physical arousal while also providing an opportunity to keep thinking about whatever triggered the anger.”
A separate study reinforces this. Researchers made participants feel angry through harsh, unfair feedback, then assigned some to a rowing workout and others to a martial-arts-style combat routine. Only the rowers calmed down. Movements that look like fighting kept aggressive feelings going; non-fighting movements helped them fade.
Anger can boost performance, but only briefly
The related claim that anger makes you physically stronger has a small kernel of truth. Anger triggers adrenaline release, which can temporarily lower the perception of fatigue. The effect is modest and short-lived. “This doesn’t mean that anger gives you ‘superhuman strength,'” Kjærvik says. “Rather, it may help you push closer to your normal physical limit for a brief period.”
Worth knowing, not worth building a strategy around. The bottom line from the research is straightforward: if calming down is the goal, choose an activity that lowers the body’s arousal level rather than one that keeps it elevated.
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