It is not just major events, like deaths and divorce, that affect our health.
Letting go of negative emotions related to everyday stress is linked to fewer long-term health problems.
How people react to little, daily irritations on the very same day is linked to both long-term health and physical limitations later in life.
The key is to avoid allowing the negative emotions to carry over to the next day.
Contrary to common belief, it is not just major events, like deaths and divorce, that affect our health.
Dr Kate Leger, the study’s first author, explained:
“Our research shows that negative emotions that linger after even minor, daily stressors have important implications for our long-term physical health.
When most people think of the types of stressors that impact health, they think of the big things, major life events that severely impact their lives, such as the death of a loved one or getting divorced.
But accumulating findings suggest that it’s not just the big events, but minor, everyday stressors that can impact our health as well.”
For the research people completed an 8-day survey of their emotions.
They were then followed up 10 years later to ask about the state of their health.
Naturally, people experienced more negative emotions in response to daily stressors.
But the people who let these negative emotions fester had the worst health 10 years later.
Dr Leger said:
“This means that health outcomes don’t just reflect how people react to daily stressors, or the number of stressors they are exposed to – there is something unique about how negative they feel the next day that has important consequences for physical health.”
Dr Leger explained that the best strategy for health was to let the emotions go:
“Stress is common in our everyday lives.
It happens at work, it happens at school, it happens at home and in our relationships.
Our research shows that the strategy to ‘just let it go’ could be beneficial to our long term physical health.”
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Leger et al., 2018).
