The stress a typical married couple feels during an ordinary half-hour argument is enough to slow their bodies’ ability to heal from wounds by at least one day, a study has found.
And if the couple’s relationship is routinely hostile toward each other, the delay in that healing process can be even doubled, according to the researchers.
They added that the findings have major implications for hospitals and health care insurers, which bear much of the cost for longer hospital stays.
The study is reported in the current issue of the research journal Archives of General Psychiatry.