Negative emotion that lingers even after minor daily stressors can have implications on long term physical health according to researchers from the University of California. It is not just big events, minor everyday stressors impact health as well, with research suggesting that same day responses to stress and long term well being are associated, impact of lingering responses remained unclear. To investigate this the team analyzed data from a nationally representative longitudinal study of adults.
Participants of the Midlife in the United States Survey completed an 8 day survey of negative emotions: each day reporting; how much time over 24 hours they felt a variety of emotions including joy, anger, afraid, happy, lonely, irritable, and others; as well as reporting the stressors which were experienced each day. Participants completed surveys 10 years later which assessed their chronic illness and functional limitations, reporting the degree to which they were able to carry out basic everyday tasks which included walking, getting dressed, climbing stairs, carrying groceries, and go for a few blocks walk.
Participants tended to report higher negative emotions when experienced a stressor the previous day. It was found that carrying lingering negative emotions in response to stressors were associated with a variety of health problems including functional impairments, chronic illness, and difficulty carrying out even basic everyday tasks a decade later. These decade old associations emerged independently of gender, baseline health, or education, and held even after researchers took same day emotional responses and average number of stressors into account.
Health outcomes do not just reflect how people react to stressors or the number of which one is exposed to, something unique about negativity and feelings the next day has consequences for physical health, which may play out through activation of stress related systems or health behaviors. Stress is common to all, everyday. Studies show that the strategy to just let it go is beneficial to long term physical health.
