The short answer
Venting is less healthy than most people think. Research by Brad Bushman and others shows that hitting things, shouting or ranting while focused on the person you’re angry with tends to keep anger alive and can make aggression more likely. What helps is different: calming the body with slow breathing or relaxation, talking about what happened in a way that leads to understanding or a solution, and writing about the experience to make sense of it. Expressing anger is healthy. Rehearsing it is not.
You’ve had a terrible day. Your boss criticized you in front of the whole team. You get home, call your sister and spend forty minutes telling her exactly what happened, what he said, what you should have said, and what a horrible person he is. When you hang up, you expect to feel better. Instead you feel more wound up than when you started.
For a long time, the popular idea was that anger is like steam in a pressure cooker. If you don’t let it out, it will build until it explodes. So you should vent: shout into a pillow, hit a punching bag, rant to a friend, smash plates in a rage room. Get it out of your system.
It’s an appealing idea. The research suggests it’s mostly wrong.
Where the idea of venting comes from
The idea goes back a long way. Aristotle wrote about catharsis, the cleansing of emotions through tragic drama. Freud and his followers developed a model of the mind in which unexpressed feelings built up pressure. In the 1970s, some popular therapies encouraged people to hit cushions and scream to release pent-up anger.
The idea feels right because, in the moment, venting can bring relief. Letting off steam feels like something is happening. But feeling a release and actually reducing anger are not the same.
What the research says
Hitting things keeps anger going
In a well-known 2002 study, the psychologist Brad Bushman made participants angry by having another person criticize an essay they had written. Some then hit a punching bag while thinking about the person who criticized them. Others hit the bag while thinking about getting fit, and others sat quietly for two minutes.
The people who hit the bag while thinking about the critic reported the most anger and were the most aggressive afterwards, when they were given a chance to blast the critic with loud noise. Those who sat quietly were the least angry and the least aggressive. Venting didn’t drain the anger. It rehearsed it.
Calming the body works better than pumping it up
In 2024, Sophie Kjærvik and Brad Bushman published a review of more than 150 studies involving over 10,000 people. They looked at activities that raise physical arousal, like running, hitting or cycling hard, and activities that lower it, like slow breathing, meditation, yoga and progressive muscle relaxation.
The calming activities reliably reduced anger and aggression. The arousing ones generally did not, and some increased them. The conclusion was simple: to bring anger down, bring the body down.
Ranting to friends can fuel rumination
Talking about what upset you can help, but it depends on how. Researchers who study co-rumination, where friends go over problems together again and again, have found it can strengthen bonds but also increase anxiety and low mood. Re-telling the same angry story, especially with a friend who joins in, can keep you stuck in the moment of anger instead of moving past it.
Online venting has been studied too. In research on so-called rant websites, people who read and wrote angry rants tended to feel angrier and less happy afterwards, not calmer.
So should you hold it in?
No. The opposite of venting isn’t suppression. Swallowing anger and pretending everything is fine has its own costs. Research by James Gross and others suggests that people who habitually suppress their feelings report more negative emotions and less satisfying relationships, and bottled-up anger often comes out later in the wrong place.
The healthy middle is expressing anger in a way that helps you understand it and do something about it, rather than just reliving it.
What actually helps
Calm the body first
When you’re angry, start with your body. Slow your breathing, making the out-breath longer than the in-breath. Relax your jaw, shoulders and hands. Take a slow walk. Give your nervous system a chance to settle before you do anything else.
Talk to understand, not to rehearse
Talking to someone you trust can be very helpful, as long as the conversation goes somewhere. Good questions to steer toward: What exactly upset me? What did I need that I didn’t get? Is there another way to look at this? What do I want to do now? A good friend helps you think, not just agree.
Write it down, then make sense of it
The psychologist James Pennebaker has found that writing about emotional experiences can improve well-being, but the benefit seems to come from making sense of what happened, not just from pouring out feelings. People who gradually used more words like “because”, “realize” and “understand” in their writing tended to benefit most. Try writing about what happened, how you felt, and what you’ve learned from it.
Take a step back
Ethan Kross and colleagues found that people who reflected on an angry experience from a distance, as if watching it happen to someone else, felt less angry than those who relived it from their own point of view. Picture the scene from across the room, or tell it to yourself in the third person.
Address the cause
Anger usually points to something that needs to change. Once you’re calm, decide what that is and whether there’s something you can do: have a conversation, set a boundary, make a request. Action aimed at the problem tends to settle anger far better than action aimed at a pillow.
When to get help
If you often feel you need to “let anger out” through shouting, breaking things or hurting yourself or others, please talk to a doctor or a therapist. You deserve better ways of dealing with what you feel, and they can be learned.
A small practice
Next time you want to vent, set a timer for ten minutes. For the first five, do something calming: breathe slowly, walk, stretch. For the next five, write three sentences: what happened, what I needed, and what I’m going to do about it. Then decide whether you still want to call someone. Often you will, but the call will be different.
For more on managing anger, see How to Deal With Anger.
Frequently asked questions
Is venting good for you?
Not in the way most people think. Hitting things, shouting or ranting while focused on what made you angry tends to keep anger going. Calming the body and talking in a way that leads to understanding or action are more helpful.
Does punching a pillow help with anger?
Research suggests it doesn’t. Studies by Brad Bushman found that hitting a punching bag while thinking about someone who made you angry increased anger and aggression rather than reducing it.
Is it bad to hold in anger?
Yes, habitually suppressing anger has its own costs. The healthy option is to express it calmly and constructively, not to bottle it up or blow it out.
What is the healthiest way to release anger?
Calming activities like slow breathing, relaxation and gentle walking, followed by talking or writing about what happened in a way that helps you understand it and decide what to do.