There’s a fascinating article from yesterday’s New York Times about recent studies that give nuances to the long-held generalization that marriage tends to make people healthier.

The article looks at a few different experiments and studies. The most interesting one to me measured short term effects of marital conflict on the body’s ability to heal:

The experiment had two phases. Each married couple, after their forearms were subjected to [a] blistering procedure, were asked to talk together for a half-hour: on one occasion they discussed topics chosen to elicit the couples’ supportive behaviors; on another day, after undergoing the blistering procedures again, they discussed topics selected to evoke conflict and tension and tried to resolve them….

The results were remarkable. After the blistering sessions in which couples argued, their wounds took, on average, a full day longer to heal than after the sessions in which the couples discussed something pleasant. Among couples who exhibited especially high levels of hostility while bickering, the wounds took a full two days longer to heal than those of couples who had showed less animosity while fighting.

I was surprised to read how much effect the amount of acrimony had on the body’s ability to heal.  I would have expected the stress of constant fighting to have negative effects on long-term health, but I wouldn’t have guessed that getting into a vicious fight would drastically lengthen the amount of time it took a blister to heal.

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