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Study: A happy marriage
can help mend physical
wounds | |
A happy marriage apparently is good medicine, but
hostile spouses may be harmful to one another's health.
Couples in conflict-ridden marriages take longer than the happily
married to heal from all kinds of wounds, from minor scrapes or athletic
injuries to major surgery, suggests a study out over the weekend.
And the health toll taken by a stressful job seems to be eased when the
worker has a pleasurable home life.
This new research, reported at a American Psychosomatic
Society meeting, adds to growing evidence that marriage has an impact on
health.
In the wound healing study, 42 couples agreed to let researchers use a
suction device to create several minor blister
wounds on their skin in two sessions about two months
apart. The first time, couples were told to discuss a neutral topic; the
next time they were given half an hour to resolve an issue or two on which
they disagreed. Their discussions were monitored.
Researchers also checked participants' wounds over the next few weeks
and their production of three proteins created in wound healing.
The outcome: "Even a simple discussion of a disagreement slows wound
healing," says psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, who did the study with
co-author Ronald Glaser of Ohio State University College of Medicine.
Overall, couples took longer to heal when asked to thrash out points of
conflict than neutral issues. Hostile couples - peppering both discussions
with criticism, sarcasm and put-downs - healed the slowest. It took them
40% longer, or two more days, to heal, and they also produced less of the
proteins linked to healing.
These are minor wounds and brief, restrained encounters. Real-life
marital conflict probably has a worse impact, Kiecolt-Glaser adds. "Such stress before surgery matters greatly," she says, and the
effect could apply to healing from any injury.
(BBC) |
快樂的婚姻顯然是一劑良藥，而針鋒相對的夫妻關系則可能對彼此的健康產生不利影響。
上周末公布的一項研究結果表明，如果夫妻二人的婚姻生活總是充斥著爭吵和沖突，那么如果他們中有人受了外傷，不管是輕微擦傷、運動損傷還是大手術，傷口的愈合速度總要比婚姻幸福的人慢一些。
此外，如果你擁有愉快的家庭生活，即使工作壓力很大，愉悅的心境也能減輕壓力對健康造成的損害。
這一新的研究成果在美國心理學學會的一次會議上發布，為婚姻能夠影響健康的理論又增添了新的證據。
在有關傷口愈合速度的研究中，有42對夫婦同意讓研究者使用抽吸設備在他們的皮膚上制造幾個很小的水泡創傷，實驗在兩個不同的階段分別進行，其中間隔兩個月左右。第一階段，這些夫婦被要求討論一個中立的主題，第二階段則是花半小時來解決一到兩個意見相左的問題。整個討論過程都是被監控的。
研究者們在實驗結束后的幾周內檢查了受試者的傷口情況，以及傷口愈合過程中產生的三種蛋白質。
心理學家賈尼斯·科克爾特·格雷西得出了這樣的結論："哪怕是很小的爭執或意見不和都會減慢傷口的愈合速度。"她和俄亥俄州立大學醫學院的羅納德·格拉澤教授合作完成了這一研究并共同撰寫報告。
總之，當一對夫婦被要求分析并解決某些爭端時，他們的傷口愈合速度比討論中立論題時要慢一些。而彼此充滿敵意的夫婦，不管在哪一類型的討論中都會批評、挖苦和貶低對方，他們的傷口愈合速度是最慢的。他們要比別人多花40%或兩天的時間才能痊愈，而且患處產生的有助于傷口愈合的蛋白質也要少一些。
科克爾特·格雷西補充說："這不過是些輕微的小創傷和拘謹收斂的短暫論戰，真實生活中的婚姻沖突很可能會產生更糟糕的影響。"她還說，如果在接受外科手術之前蒙受這樣的壓力，就會產生巨大的不良影響，這種影響適用于任何受傷情況的愈合和恢復。
（中國日報網站譯） |
Updated: 2005-03-09 11:13