Science Says Holding a Grudge for This Long Can Make You Less Healthy

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• A new study that looked at over 200,000 people across 23 countries found that dispositional forgiveness was linked to better well-being one year later.

• Dispositional forgiveness is defined as the likelihood that someone will forgive others across different situations.

• Experts acknowledge that forgiveness isn’t always easy, and it may be more helpful to think of it as a process rather than a one-time, all-or-nothing decision.

Some things in life are easier to let go of than others, so it makes sense that you’d reach a certain point in adulthood with a few grudges under your belt. After all, it’s a very common response when you’re hurt. But while holding a grudge is never fun, new research suggests it might actually be holding you back from a happier, healthier you.

The findings don’t mean that you have to let everything slide in life. But they do make a solid case for rethinking who you consider a mortal enemy going forward, if only to support your health. (And, of course, to put better vibes out into the world.)

Here’s what the study found, plus what mental health experts suggest to lower your level of grudginess going forward.

Meet the experts: Hillary Ammon, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist at the Center for Anxiety & Women’s Emotional Wellness; Richard G. Cowden, PhD, lead study author, psychologist, and research scientist with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

What did the study find?

The study, published in NPJ Mental Health, analyzed data from the Global Flourishing Study, focusing on nearly 208,000 people across 23 countries.

As part of the study, participants were asked how often they forgave people who had hurt them. This helped the researchers determine a person’s level of dispositional forgiveness, which is how likely they are to forgive others across time and different situations.

About a year later, the participants completed a second survey that assessed 56 well-being outcomes across different domains of life, including psychological well-being, social well-being, social and psychological distress, and physical health.

After crunching the data, the researchers discovered that a tendency to forgive others was linked to small improvements in a range of well-being areas. The exact amount varied by type of well-being, but a tendency to forgive was most consistently linked to better psychological and social well-being.

People who were more forgiving also reported higher levels of optimism, a better understanding of their purpose in life, and higher levels of satisfaction in their relationships.

What if you can’t forgive someone?

Not exactly. “Forgiveness is not usually an all-or-nothing process,” says Richard G. Cowden, PhD, lead study author, a psychologist, and research scientist with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Instead, he recommends thinking of forgiveness as a capacity that grows over time and with practice.

“Even if someone is still struggling with unresolved hurts, they may already have benefited from the forgiveness they have experienced in other situations,” he says. “Struggling to forgive in some instances does not necessarily exclude a person from the potential benefits of forgiveness. Rather, it may reflect the reality that forgiveness is often challenging and can unfold gradually and unevenly across different experiences and relationships.”

Even people with high levels of dispositional forgiveness may struggle to forgive others in some situations, points out Hillary Ammon, PsyD, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Anxiety & Women’s Emotional Wellness. “It may depend on the severity of the offense or the relationship with the offender,” she says.

The takeaway

“Holding grudges can be bad for both your physical and mental health,” Ammon says. “People that tend to hold grudges also tend to carry more anger and stress. They may also have a more negative outlook on life.”

When you combine those emotions and thinking styles, it can raise the odds you’ll have anxiety and depression, she says. “In turn, chronic anxiety, anger, stress, or depressive symptoms can lead to higher levels of cortisol, higher blood pressure, and muscle tension,” Ammon says.

With that said, Cowden understands that forgiveness isn’t always easy. “It is important to acknowledge that and not put too much pressure on ourselves to ‘get there’ quickly,” he says. “Forgiveness often feels more natural when people treat it as a process rather than a one-time, all-or-nothing experience.”

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