Does Anger Aggravate Pain?

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Mr.every one of us has felt pain in one form or another. Often these blows are associated with feelings of anger, whether towards a person or an inanimate object that caused the pain, or something else. But new research suggests that this anger, when left unregulated, can make pain worse, creating a vicious feedback loop.

By publishing their findings in a recent issue of The pain diaryscientists from Israel, Austria and the United States suggest that a combination of anger and a sense of injustice is even more powerful than anxiety or depression in fanning the flames of chronic pain and increasing its interference in daily life.

“Anger is not bad in itself,” Gadi Gilam, co-author and neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in a statement. “It is a common everyday emotional signal that can promote personal and interpersonal well-being when properly regulated. But when anger mixes with a sense of injustice, which in itself is a trigger for angry reactions, it can trap people in a cycle of emotional and physical suffering that amplifies and maintains chronic pain.”

Read more: »Antonio Damasio explains why pain is necessary»

Gilam and colleagues studied more than 730 adults with chronic pain. By interviewing these participants, the researchers constructed four different “anger profiles.” These included “LALI” (low anger/low injustice), “MAMI” (medium anger/medium injustice), “MALI” (medium anger, low injustice), and “HAHI” (high anger/high injustice). The groupings reflected not only the volunteers’ feelings, but also how they expressed and controlled their anger.

Patients with HAHI and MAMI profiles fare worse than those in other groups in terms of chronic pain.

Scientists also found that anger profiles didn’t just make a person’s chronic pain worse: These profiles could predict outcomes. By following more than 240 study participants for about five months after their initial survey responses, the authors suggest that anger profiles dictated the amount of pain they felt, how much it interfered with their daily lives, and how it shaped their behavior.

This information could be used by doctors to build anger profiles in patients with chronic pain and then tailor interventions that address not only their pain but also their anger. “Clinically, early identification and targeted management of maladaptive anger can improve pain outcomes and reduce disability over time,” the authors write.

“We currently do not have a good enough understanding of the neurobiology underlying chronic pain,” Gilam added. “We don’t have a simple pill to cure this problem, nor do we have effective assessment tools to predict which pain will persist. Incorporating assessments of anger and injustice into the treatment of chronic pain could fundamentally improve outcomes.”

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Main image: kanvictory / Shutterstock

• Bob Grant

  Published on December 8, 2025

  Bob Grant is the associate editor of Nautilus.