Part 1: The Biology of Anger: The Body’s First Language | HHOM LLC By Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

11-11-2025

By Dr. Howard Friedman MD | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC

Anger begins in the body long before it becomes a thought — a surge of electrical and hormonal signals preparing us to protect what matters

This three-part series explores how emotion lives within the body — how anger begins as biology, how memory reshapes feeling, and how love and safety reprogram the nervous system toward healing. Each post stands alone, but together they trace the full arc of emotional integration.

Poem — Before the Flame

Before the flame, there is friction.

Before the word, a wound remembered.

Anger is not the enemy—

it is the echo of what was never said.

Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

I. The Oldest Signal in the Body

Long before humans spoke, we felt. Emotion is the original language of the nervous system—a system that evolved to keep us alive long before words, morality, or even conscious thought existed. Among those emotions, anger is one of the oldest and most misunderstood. It’s easy to condemn, harder to interpret. But biologically, anger isn’t about hatred—it’s about protection.

When I feel anger rise, I know my body is trying to say something: a boundary was crossed, a memory was touched, a threat was perceived. The same chemistry that readies a lion to defend its cub is still in me—cortisol and adrenaline flowing, heart rate rising, muscles tightening. The body readies for action long before the mind has caught up.

II. The Reticular Gate: Where Emotion Begins

Every moment, millions of sensory inputs stream into the brain. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) decides which ones matter. It’s the brain’s ancient sentinel—alerting us to danger, opportunity, or familiarity. When life experience or trauma primes the RAS toward vigilance, the gate leans open toward anger and fear. We don’t “choose” these feelings; they happen to us. From there, the amygdala ignites the alarm, the hypothalamus calls for hormonal reinforcements, and the prefrontal cortex scrambles to interpret. The story we tell ourselves—He disrespected me. She ignored me.—comes later. The biology always fires first. That’s why people can know they’re safe and still feel enraged. The RAS remembers patterns, not logic.

III. Anger’s Purpose—and Its Cost

Anger evolved to help us act when words or flight were impossible. It fuels courage, self-protection, and even social justice. In the right dose, it’s energy for change. But when anger has nowhere to go—when the threat is gone, but the body still believes it’s under siege—it becomes toxic. Chronic anger keeps cortisol high, damages blood vessels, stiffens arteries, and weakens the immune response. In medicine, I see it as both a psychological state and a physiological storm. It inflames not only the heart but the tissue that sustains it. Unresolved anger is grief wearing armor.

IV. The Hidden Link Between Anger and Loss

Most anger I’ve witnessed, in others and in myself, traces back to something deeper: loss unspoken, needs unmet, grief unacknowledged. The body feels the injustice long before the intellect names it. We flare not because we are cruel, but because something tender remains unhealed. In clinical practice, I’ve seen patients whose chronic pain eased only after forgiveness, whose migraines lessened after reconciliation. The nervous system is not separate from the soul—it listens to what we refuse to say.

V. When Love Softens the Reflex

Today, I live in a far more loving environment. My anger is less frequent, but it hasn’t vanished. It still appears—small, surprising, sometimes over trivial things. But now I see it as a messenger, not a monster. Each flare is a fragment of the past surfacing, asking to be met with presence instead of judgment. Love doesn’t erase anger; it lowers the volume. It reminds the body that the battle is over.

VI. Closing Reflection — The Translation of Fire

Anger was our first language, the body’s urgent cry for safety.Over time, it became misunderstood condemned as weakness or feared as violence. But in truth, it’s one of the few emotions honest enough to reveal pain without disguise.

The task isn’t to silence it, but to translate it—into awareness, into understanding, into movement toward peace.

Next in the series: [When Memory Becomes Emotion →

Poem — Ember

The body remembers what it burned for.

But every flame, if tended, becomes light.

Anger is the body’s way of asking:

Can I rest now?

Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, MD

Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps

Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)

https://www.hhomllc.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Why does anger feel like it “takes over” before I can think?

A: Because biologically, it does.

Anger begins in the Reticular Activating System, amygdala, and autonomic nervous system long before the prefrontal cortex gets involved. The body identifies a threat—real or remembered—then floods the system with adrenaline and cortisol in milliseconds. By the time you’re “aware” of feeling angry, the body has already shifted into defense mode. This is not a moral failure. It’s physiology doing what it was designed to do thousands of years before language existed.

Q: How can anger be both protective and harmful?

A: The intent is protective; the cost comes from chronic activation.

In the right moment, anger sharpens focus, strengthens the heart’s output, tightens muscles, and prepares you to defend yourself. But when the nervous system stays on high alert long after the threat is gone, cortisol remains elevated, blood vessels stiffen, and inflammation spreads throughout the body. Acute anger keeps you alive. Chronic anger keeps you inflamed. Understanding the difference is essential for long-term health.

Q: Why do small triggers set off big reactions?

A: Because the body reacts to patterns, not logic.

If the RAS has been shaped by past trauma, loss, or prolonged stress, it becomes hypersensitive. Small cues—tone of voice, posture, facial expression—can activate the same neural circuitry as past threats. The response may feel disproportionate, but it’s actually the body remembering, not overreacting. Healing begins when you recognize that intensity as an old survival strategy asking for safety, not punishment.