Arguments good for health
Saturday, 21 August 2010, 19:11 IST
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Arguments good for health
Bangalore: Arguing now and then for the right reasons may be good for your health, a new study has claimed. A team of researchers from the University of Michigan that carried out an eight-day study involving 1,842 people found that people who avoid confrontations show more symptoms of physical problems the next day then those who engage in reasonable arguments. The team also found abnormal rises or falls of the stress hormone cortisol throughout the day among those who bypass bickering. "Relationships have important influences on how we feel on a daily basis, especially the problems in our relationships," said study author Kira Birditt from the university's Institute for Social Research. "How we deal with problems affects our daily well-being," she said. Previous research has shown married couples who avoid arguments are more likely to die earlier than their expressive counterparts. In a previous study, Birditt and her colleagues had found that the most common way for people to deal with their interpersonal problems is to simply avoid them. Now, they wanted to know the health impacts of this avoidance behaviour. They analysed data of participants, who were asked whether they had engaged in an argument or whether they had experienced a situation in which they could have argued but decided to let it pass without a fight. The subjects also gave saliva samples for four of the days. About 62 per cent participants said they sidestepped arguments at some point during the study, while 41 per cent reported engaging in conflict and 27 per cent indicated no tension. Some type of tension (whether they avoided it or not) found to have triggered more negative emotions, such as feeling upset or angry, and physical symptoms, including nausea or aches and pains. However, avoiding conflict was associated with having more of these physical symptoms the following day, said Birditt.
Source: PTI
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