The scary way stonewalling is hurting you without even realising.

Fighting can be stressful and it’s not like any of us choose to fight with our partners. To be honest, I could live a happy life by avoiding as many fights as possible.

Easier said than done.

Now there is credible evidence to show that fighting affects your health and not only does it affect your general health, but HOW you fight can affect different parts of your body. The great thing is that next time you go for a check up with your doctor you can ask them to pay particular attention to the body part which is most affected by your relationship fighting style.

In the movie The Details starring Elizabeth Banks and Tobey Macguire, a married couple fight in a typical style over something ridiculous. Post continues after video… 

The research is actually old research but fresh eyes have had a look at it and explained it better in the May edition of the journal Emotions.

In the eighties researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, analysed a group of couples who had been married for at least 15 years and basically made them fight with each other. Researchers helped out by pushing all the right buttons.

Facial expressions and voices were carefully observed during the fights down to every last detail including eyebrow placement, eye wideness, lip positions and voice crescendos.

Then each participant was asked to fill in a health questionnaire.

Here's what they discovered.

Seething in anger = could lead to cardiac problems like chest pain or high blood pressure;

Stonewalling = could lead to muscular problems like back or neck pain;

Sadness or fear = no cardiac or muscular problems.

Dr. Levenson who took a look at the study explained the results saying they make complete physiological sense. He said anger raises pulse rates which can harm the heart over time.

Stonewalling can create tension.

“We’ve known that people in bad marriages are often unhealthy,” he added.

So STOP FIGHTING, for the sake of your future health.