Lingering Feelings Over Daily Stresses May Impact Long-Term Health

A study published in Psychological Science sought to determine whether persistent negative feelings over daily stresses impacts long-term health, via analysis of data from a nationwide survey of more than 1,100 adults, reports the National Institutes of Health . Participants answered questions about the number and type of daily stressors they experienced over 24 hours, then rated how often they felt different emotions during that day on a scale of 1 to 4. About a decade later, the participants answered questions about their physical health, concerning whether they had experienced any of 26 chronic illnesses in the last year, or heart disease or cancer. They also were asked about their ability to perform day-to-day activities, and to rank how much they felt their health interfered with these activities on a scale of 1 to 4. Participants who continued to experience negative feelings the day after a stressful event, on days without a stressful event happening, exhibited more chronic physical health conditions and limitations in their daily activities a decade later. "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," says the University of California, Irvine's Kate Leger. "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."