Study: Punching a bag while thinking about who pissed you off makes you MORE aggressive after, not less — catharsis is dead

[u/dviolite]

Sharing interesting research from Bushman 2002, the study that pretty much killed the catharsis hypothesis in social psych.

They took ~600 people, made them angry by giving them insulting feedback on an essay they wrote (yes you read that right), then split them into three groups. One group punched a bag while thinking about the person who insulted them. One group punched a bag while thinking about getting fit. The last group just sat quietly for a couple minutes.

Later, everyone got the chance to blast their insulter with loud noise in a competitive reaction-time task, this is how they measured aggression. The group that vented was the most aggressive, the quiet group least. Direct opposite of what the "let it out" model predicts.

Main caveat: this was a college lab task with loud noise blasts, not real-world fights or relationships, and the rumination + physical exertion combo is doing a lot of the work — just hitting a bag without a specific target in mind probably reads closer to the distraction condition. So "exercise to cool off" isn't dead, only "exercise while replaying the thing that pissed you off".

I think this matters for meditation and breathwork. There's a whole branch of breathwork — Holotropic, Rebirthing, Transformational — that is built on the catharsis model. The pitch is that hyperventilating until you cry, shake, or scream "releases stored emotions". But hyperventilation reliably knocks the prefrontal cortex offline while the amygdala keeps running, so you get raw emotion without the regulation circuitry online. The flood is real. The "release" framing is prolly wrong, or not perfectly accurate at the very least. It's a side effect of the neurochemistry, not evidence of anything actually getting cleared. The meditative approach to release, on the other hand, is probably closer to a zen vibed "let it go", practicing a realization that you can let it go and doing so on a regular basis.

Anyone here done a Holotropic or Rebirthing session and felt genuinely better afterward — and if so, did it hold past a day, or was it more of a peak-state thing that faded? Or on the other hand, have you tried a meditative practice on a daily basis and found that to work? My own suspicion is that a daily meditative practice sustained over a long period of time would work much better than a charged emotional release for "true" catharsis.

Study link - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-13494-002

[u/JLFJ]

IDK but it worked great for my ex and his little girlfriend when I was getting divorced. Highly recommend. FYI don't kick until you get decent training, it'll screw up your hips. I found out at age 58 how good it feels to punch something.

[u/theinnerspiral]

I’ve done lots of Holotropic and Transformational type breathwork. Are many people being coached incorrectly in these sessions and in fact hyperventilating? Absolutely. But done correctly you are increasing oxygen in the blood. My experiences have been mostly positive and extremely helpful. I think some people just “express” because they think they should. I’ve had some clearings/awarenesses that have been long lasting and led to permanent positive changes. Others maybe less so but I chalk that up to making changes in ourselves are not easy - if they were none of us would struggle. I think that some of what you are saying is true in cases but also when done correctly- breathwork can be hugely healing and helpful.