Thursday, October 4, 2007

Fighting style and a healthy heart

I've never doubted fighting with a significant other put an emotional toll on people. But new research shows that fighting also can affect a person's physical health.

The New York Times reports that it's not how often or why couples fight that matters but rather how they react to and resolve conflict. The effects differ for men and women.

A common conflict resolution strategy is to keep quiet and not say anything at all. But besides not really solving the conflict, this strategy also has scary consequences for women.

In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt, according to the July report in Psychosomatic Medicine.
Four times! That should be encouragement for any woman to vent her feelings. But ladies should be careful in how they do so, lest they wish to damage their spouse's health.
For a man, heart risk increased if disagreements with his wife involved a battle for control. And it didn’t matter whether he or his wife was the one making the controlling comments. An example of a controlling argument style showed up in one video of a man arguing with his wife about money. “You really should just listen to me on this,” he told her.
Moral of the story: When you argue, fight fair. Your health could depend on it.

What's your fighting style? What are some fair fighting tactics you use when arguing with an SO? Will you be more aware of your fighting style after you've learned about these possible health repercussions? Do you believe these health problems as a result of fighting are true?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Women need to fight fair? Because men don't want to hear it. ack.

So our choices are --what? keep quiet and you die young or need to be heard and they die young? (I'm so there -- I'll send roses).

You girls need to get a grip -- here's a quote from your story . . . " An example of a controlling argument style showed up in one video of a man arguing with his wife about money. “You really should just listen to me on this,” he told her.Moral of the story: When you argue, fight fair. Your health could depend on it."

Based on your post ,as presented, and the above quotes from the NYT (which is a liberal passel of poop -just sayin') , the person who is going to die young is the woman yet your slant clearly appears to put the onus on the woman (shaddup, he might croak and omg, think of the guilt).

This is a blog for women yet you post an article that portrays the man as weak yet needing control. The woman should be a martyr, die young and hope that Heaven is all about enabling. Pretty pricey.

It's my experience that men will always want control. It's a mindset that's ingrained regardless of IQ or EQ. You can always attempt to meet them in the middle but, at the end of the day it won't matter because men and women are generally polar opposites and the only thing that keeps this whole man/woman thing going is that women are, or were, willing to stoop as low as they could go to make a match but the times a a'changin'.

So ladies, you can either give in and die young or you can ask to be seen as an equal -- then just say a prayer for him 4 times.

Or, find a metrosexual guy, raised by women. He knows how to make peace. (sleep with one eye open though).

btw, you girls are really pushing it here. Maybe you should switch to cooking or climb Mount Everest or open a stall selling self help books in Bangladesh.

Better yet, find another article that brings relationships back to the middle, where both partners have to give as much as they take. Now, that just might work although there's no angst and really, no one will listen anyway.

Still, qudo's for trying.

Anonymous said...

This blog is for men and women. The line, "Moral of the story: When you argue, fight fair," referred to men and women.

Unknown said...

And how many men have posted a response ?

Excerpt from the article:

"A common conflict resolution strategy is to keep quiet and not say anything at all. But besides not really solving the conflict, this strategy also has scary consequences for women.
In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt, according to the July report in Psychosomatic Medicine.
Four times! That should be encouragement for any woman to vent her feelings. But ladies should be careful in how they do so, lest they wish to damage their spouse's health.
For a man, heart risk increased if disagreements with his wife involved a battle for control. And it didn’t matter whether he or his wife was the one making the controlling comments. An example of a controlling argument style showed up in one video of a man arguing with his wife about money. “You really should just listen to me on this,” he told her.
Moral of the story: When you argue, fight fair. Your health could depend on it."

Real moral of the story -- if a woman shuts up, she dies young. If a woman has the courage to say what she feels, he dies.

Obviously men don't fight fair -- they don't HEAR women, regardless of the topic and if they do, they drop dead -- guilt for the woman.

Women carry the burden -- either go brain dead -- be sweet and deny your needs or -- you die young.

Truly, that article is close to correct but still has a problem with malarky and Rose, you bought the malarky.

I think you thought it was all inclusive. That's sad.
Please feel free to tell me if I'm wrong.

Anonymous said...

I interpreted the article as to say women should express their emotions but without being controlling (and men shouldn't be controlling either). It is possible for two people to talk without controlling each other while expressing their feelings. Back in elementary school I learned that this was called using "I" statements.