Forgiveness can improve immune function

Come to think of it, I have had fewer colds in the last year! The 5 stages of a quarter-life-crisis have you had one? Relationship violence kills 4 women a DAY in the U. If you or someone you know is being abused, Tell Somebody. Forgiveness is not just about saying the words.

As you release the anger, resentment and hostility, you begin to feel empathy, compassion and sometimes even affection for the person who wronged you.

Studies have found that some people are just naturally more forgiving. Consequently, they tend to be more satisfied with their lives and to have less depression, anxiety, stress, anger and hostility. People who hang on to grudges, however, are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder , as well as other health conditions. In fact, 62 percent of American adults say they need more forgiveness in their personal lives, according to a survey by the nonprofit Fetzer Institute.

Forgiveness is a choice, Swartz says. That includes the events themselves, and also how you reacted, how you felt, and how the anger and hurt have affected you since. This can be simply deciding not to fume about someone cutting you off in traffic, or something more complicated, such as forgiving a spouse who was unfaithful. First, consider the costs of not forgiving. Not forgiving someone often leads to hostility towards that person, and your anger and bitterness can seep into other parts of your life.

Hostility keeps levels of the stress hormone cortisol elevated in your body, which can trigger a whole range of bad outcomes, including high blood pressure, immune system issues and a tendency to gain weight. Holding on to hostility also has psychological consequences.

It can keep you feeling like a victim, prevent you from moving past a trauma, and lead to anxiety and depression. Not being able to forgive fosters feelings of anger, hostility, and stress, which are well documented to impact mental and physical health, past research shows.

A study published in April in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine included more than people ages 16 to The researchers found that regardless of age, people who were able to forgive experienced a decrease in their perception of their own stress. And this decrease led to a decrease in psychological distress. Conversely, stress — and particularly the stress hormone cortisol — has several negative effects on systems throughout the body.

Chronically elevated cortisol can shrink the size of portions of your brain including the hippocampus, which is responsible for turning experiences into memories, Worthington says. It's because of this stress-cortisol link that not being able to forgive and let go of certain stresses could potentially affect memory, he adds. In a study published in October in the journal Neurology , researchers investigated whether blood cortisol levels affected memory in more than 2, healthy middle-aged people.

They found that people, especially women, who had high cortisol levels over time had poorer memory and performed worse on cognitive tests.