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In any relationship, whether at work or home, conflict is inevitable. You might not be surprised that relationship conflict can affect your mental and emotional health. But did you know it can also affect you physically?
Relationship conflict is any kind of struggle, disagreement, argument, or dispute between two people in a relationship – whether between partners, friends, siblings, colleagues, or co-workers.
Whether you’re angry or disappointed in something your partner did or said, or you lash out at a colleague who undermines you, you can end up in conflict.
When the conflict in your relationship is ongoing, it creates stress that can negatively affect the health and well-being of both you and your partner.
Relationship conflict can actually be healthy and productive if you use it to learn how the other person sees things and can develop creative solutions. On the other hand, ongoing unresolved conflict can not only create tension at home or work, it can cause physical pain or sickness.
Emotions, when not felt or expressed, are held in your body – think “butterflies” or “nervous stomach” or your heart racing with fear or excitement.
According to The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse by Steven Ray Ozanich, published just recently, the way emotions can get stuck in your body is essentially this. Someone close to you made you angry and your first instinct was to yell at them. But because you knew it would be counterproductive to scream, you held back. As a result, residual tension could get stored in your neck area, creating physical pain.
In any event, ongoing unresolved relationship conflict can lower your immune system making you more susceptible to any number of illnesses. It can also result in tension headaches or migraines, and chronic pain in areas like your back or neck.
Therefore, it’s important to develop effective and productive communication skills to resolve conflict productively and strengthen your most important relationships.
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