Healing emotional wounds doesn't just make you feel better. New research shows there are also surprising health benefits.
By Lisa Collier Cool
From Reader's Digest
The Best Way to Heal a Heart
Elizabeth Nassau was stunned. She had called a good friend to wish her a happy birthday, when suddenly she found herself under attack. "Out of the blue, she launched into a long list of everything that bothered her about me, and dumped me over the phone," says the 48-year-old writer from Philadelphia.
Nassau blames jealousy: "My career was just starting to get off the ground. My book was about to be published, and I'd won an award for my essays. I felt my friend didn't like it that I wasn't so needy anymore."
She spent two years fuming. "Every time I saw her, my blood boiled, my heart pounded and I'd get so tense that I literally felt sick."
Who hasn't felt the sting of betrayal, unfair treatment or something more abusive? Many of us cling to the resulting rage and pain, but others choose not to. The latest research shows that learning to forgive those who hurt us can have profound benefits. It's become a hot new way to manage anger, cut stress and, maybe most important, improve health.
At an Atlanta conference last fall, some 40 researchers met to review what they're finding in probing the healing power of making peace. One study showed that giving up grudges can reduce chronic back pain. Another found that forgiveness limited relapses among women battling substance-abuse problems. One intriguing project discussed at the event -- run by the nonprofit Campaign for Forgiveness Research -- used MRI scans to explore how just thinking about empathy and reconciliation sparks activity in the brain's left middle temporal gyrus, suggesting we all have a mental forgiveness center set to be tapped.
So, on top of having profound emotional benefits, purging our anger may also help heal some of what ails us physically. But how do we do it? And what does it mean to forgive?
Elizabeth Nassau's revelation came at a chance meeting with her estranged friend: "Instead of turning away, I told her how profoundly she had hurt me. She listened, but didn't apologize. Then I surprised myself. I apologized for harboring anger and hatred against her for so long. As I spoke, I realized I'd forgiven her."
The effect was potent. "My anger melted away," she says. Nassau hasn't renewed the friendship, but now when she sees her ex-pal, "I can breathe calmly and my heart isn't palpitating."
Nassau's experience fits with the findings of Fred Luskin, PhD, director of Stanford University's Forgiveness Project and author of Forgive for Good. Luskin -- quick to emphasize that forgiving doesn't mean condoning the offense -- has found that letting go of a grudge can slash one's stress level by up to 50 percent. Volunteers in his studies also have shown improvements in energy, mood, sleep quality and overall physical vitality. "Carrying around a load of bitterness and anger at how unfairly you were treated is very toxic," says Luskin.
Cortisol
That's because we're wired to treat any tension-inducing event, be it a fire alarm or reliving a simmering feud, as a crisis. At these times, our bodies release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, prompting our hearts to accelerate, our breath to quicken and our minds to race. An accompanying sugar release revs up muscles, and clotting factors surge in the blood. It's all harmless if the scare is brief (like a near mishap on the highway). But anger and resentment are like accidents that don't end, turning hormones meant to save us into toxins.
Cortisol's depressive effect on the immune system has been linked to serious disorders. Bruce McEwen, PhD, director of the neuroendocrinology lab at Rockefeller University in New York City, says cortisol wears down the brain, leading to cell atrophy and memory loss. It also raises blood pressure and blood sugar, hardening arteries and leading to heart disease.
Enter forgiveness, which seems to stop these hormones from flowing. For a study presented to the American Psychosomatic Society last March, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers recruited 36 male veterans who had coronary artery disease and were also burdened by painful issues, some war-related, some tied to marital problems, work conflicts or childhood traumas. Half the men received forgiveness training; the rest didn't. Those who got the training showed greater blood flow to the heart.
Just thinking about resolving a hurt can help. In a 2001 study, psychologist Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, PhD, of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, hooked 71 college students to sensors and had them relive lies, insults or betrayals by family members, friends or lovers. Told to imagine forgiving the offenders, the subjects experienced heart rates and blood pressure two and a half times lower than when they thought about holding a grudge. "It appears that forgiveness could be a powerful antidote to anger, which is strongly associated with chronically elevated blood pressure and increased risk for heart disease," says Witvliet.
That makes sense to Sandra Lamb. After growing worried last year about her 82-year-old father's poor driving, the Denver woman confronted him.
"I told him he really should consider not driving anymore, because it was getting dangerous," Lamb says. "He got so angry he was shaking, and said, 'I've been driving all my life -- and no one is going to take my car keys.' Then he told me he never wanted to see me again." Lamb was so upset and angry that she was unable to talk to her father for seven months.
Eventually, though, she felt she had to reconcile with him before it was too late. She went to visit him. "I told my father I was sorry about how I handled the driving issue, and apologized for upsetting him." And she forgave him for lashing out. "He hugged me and said, 'That's okay.' I was very happy and thankful to have our relationship restored." Health problems soon made the driving dispute moot.
Take It As It Is
Despite its benefits, many of us won't even consider forgiveness an option. That, Witvliet says, is a big mistake: "Hanging on to a resentment for months or years means making a commitment to remain angry."
Take Catherine O'Brien. After her 1992 divorce, the Pacifica, California, video producer spent years hating her ex-husband. She was angry about how the split ruined her future.
"Suddenly, I was a single parent with a 12-year-old daughter. It was exhausting and disappointing not to have someone to share the carpools, the doctors' visits and the joys of having a child, when I thought we'd raise a family together."
The anger took a toll. "I was tense and uptight all the time, constantly got colds, and was always tired," says O'Brien, 55.
Even more upsetting was how other people saw her. "At a party, someone introduced me to a woman, saying, 'Her husband left her too.' I was shocked that I'd become identified as an embittered ex-wife."
Then she heard an audiotape of Fred Luskin speaking. "It was like a light bulb going on: I realized the only person I was hurting was myself." She told her ex-husband she was moving on and felt a profound relief. "A weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I started feeling much healthier."
Luskin says resolving such resentment "replaces hostile feelings with positive ones that make your body feel calm and relaxed, which enhances health." In one of his studies, 17 adults from Northern Ireland who lost a relative to terrorist violence got a week of forgiveness training. Their mental distress dropped by about 40 percent, and they saw a 35 percent dip in headaches, back pain and insomnia.
O'Brien and others may balk at forgiveness because they misunderstand what it is, explains Luskin. "It in no way means the offense was okay, or that you should let yourself be treated unfairly."
Even if forgiveness isn't the answer, you can find peace. Julie Catalano, 51, of San Antonio, did -- despite what she calls the "incomprehensible cruelty" of a veterinarian she says let her 19-year-old cat, Suki, die. She says the cat was lethargic when she sought help. Tests showed anemia and a kidney disorder. Instead of doing all he could to save Suki, Catalano claims, the vet performed unnecessary dental surgery and underprescribed medications. (The vet denied it; a state inquiry cleared him of wrongdoing.)
"I made a conscious decision not to forgive -- and feel absolutely no guilt about it," Catalano says. Nevertheless, her outrage has a constructive side: It led her to found an animal advocacy group. "Fighting to protect other pets is what's given me spiritual healing."
New York City psychotherapist Jeanne Safer, author of Forgiving and Not Forgiving, says even basic reconciliation isn't the answer for some people. But if you're not stewing or plotting revenge, she says, you've found peace. "There's no one-size-fits-all solution to crimes of the heart."
However you defuse your anger, forgiveness can be powerful. And while you can't alter the past, confronting unresolved issues and the people behind them can lead you to a happier, healthier future.
From Reader's Digest - May 2004
