Relax – it’ll help you heal, study shows

RELAXED people can heal up to twice as rapidly as those who are very stressed, research indicates.

Scientists inflicted small “punch” wounds on healthy volunteers whose levels of life stress were assessed using a standard questionnaire.

Changes in levels of the stress hormone cortisol reflected the differences in healing speed.

A similar pattern emerged from an analysis of pooled data from 22 studies by different research groups examining stress and wound healing.

Professor John Weinman, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, presented the findings at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

Previously, he showed that wound healing can be enhanced by psychological help aimed at addressing emotional stress.

Prof Weinman said: “My interests are focused on investigating and assessing how patients perceive illness and treatment, and how this affects the way they respond to and recover from a range of physical health problems.