It’s no secret that arguing with your spouse can cause stress. Nor will it come as a shock that that stress can be bad for your health, particularly if the marital discord is chronic. But a recent study published in Emotion introduced an interesting new twist to this story—it turns out that how you argue with your spouse could determine what sort of health problems you are likely to endure.

Researchers at Northwestern University tracked 156 married couples for more than 20 years and found compelling evidence that spouses who fly off the handle during arguments are prone to cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure and chest pain…while spouses who shut down and bottle up their feelings tend to develop muscular problems such as back or neck pain.

That makes some intuitive sense. Yelling and screaming makes one’s heart rate accelerate, which can do damage to the heart muscle when it occurs frequently. Holding in emotions makes the body tense, which over time can lead to muscle and joint issues.

These findings apply to both husbands and wives, but they are significantly more pronounced among men. That jives with earlier research suggesting that men are particularly vulnerable to health consequences stemming from negative emotions in their marriages.

The good news is that it might be possible to reduce the odds of these future health problems by modifying your arguing style. Hotheads could go for a walk when they feel their temperature rising, for example, and return to resume the difficult discussion only when they’ve cooled down. If they continue to get excessively worked up during marital disagreements, they could seek anger-management counseling.

Stonewallers must come to terms with the fact that in the long term, not voicing their feelings is not good for their relationships or their health. If they truly cannot bring themselves to tell their spouses what they feel, it might be worth going for individual or couple’s therapy.

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