Science has proved that once you choose to forgive, the brain will help you "throw away" the pain.

"to forgive others is to save yourself." A recent scientific study found that this sentence is not a flashy "relief pill", but a real health secret. Forgiving others makes it easier to forget painful experiences, free yourself from bad emotions and restore physical and mental balance, scientists say.

01

Choose to forgive, it's easier to forget the pain.

A scientific study published in the journal Psychological Science on May 21 found that people who choose to forgive are more likely to forget details of past injuries. This is because after the act of forgiveness, there is a mechanism for forgetting painful memories.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews in the UK asked 30 subjects to read 40 situations including serious injury and theft behind their backs, and then asked each subject to score the degree of injury caused by each behavior, and imagine how likely it would be to forgive each other if they were a victim.

Two weeks later, the same group of subjects read the same content again, but the content was marked red or green respectively. The researchers asked subjects to recall the green part of the content, not the red part of the text.

Dr Saima Noreen, who wrote the paper, said that when subjects chose to "forgive" at the beginning, it was difficult to recall the details afterwards. For those who chose not to forgive in the first place, those memories were profound, even if they were asked not to recall the details in the experiment.

The results show that after people make a "forgiveness" decision, the brain activates the forgetting mechanism, causing people to forget painful memories that were bad for them. Even if it is still difficult to really forgive all of a sudden, it will be easier to forget those memories as long as you choose to forgive.

"the relationship between forgiveness and forgetting is two-way and gets more complicated as time goes on," Noreen said. For a long time, we have known that learning to forgive others can have a positive impact on personal health. "

02

The disaster of life brought by "no forgiveness"

In recent years, researchers have done a large number of experiments on the relationship between "forgiveness" and health, and found that the psychological activity of "forgiveness" can improve cardiovascular function, reduce chronic pain, relieve stress and improve the quality of life. It is a "good medicine" to keep healthy.

On the other hand, a person who is bitter about contradictions is often in a state of tension, and because the inner conflict is not relieved, it will lead to a high degree of excitement in the brain and nerves, resulting in nervous tension, vasoconstriction, elevated blood pressure, gastrointestinal spasms, inhibition of digestive juice secretion, and so on, thus increasing the risk of heart disease, mental illness and other diseases.

Life practice has also proved that a person who is not calm and unable to forgive others will often turn small things into big things and intensify contradictions, so as to bring endless trouble to himself.

In the book "Yue Shan Night talk", which is composed of real cases, "broken wealth hurts the body only because it can not bear it" tells the life disaster caused by "unforgiveness".

The patient in this article, named Rui, came to the traditional Chinese medicine clinic to treat Parkinsons Dieseas. Parkinson's disease is called tremor paralysis in traditional Chinese medicine. Rui has been suffering from this disease for nearly three years. Her hands are trembling. When she eats, she often trembles so badly that she falls to the ground before the meal is delivered to her mouth. After a period of traditional Chinese medicine treatment, she did not improve much, and her symptoms often recurred for a while. Puzzled by the traditional Chinese medicine doctor, under questioning, Rui talked about what had happened in her life:

"my husband and I run a container shipping company. We have a villa on an island and share a private road with our neighbors. There are only two of us on the island. As the road was in disrepair, we suggested that the two families pay to repair the road, but the neighbors opposed it, so we had to spend our own money to repair it. Unexpectedly, the hired workers did not pay attention and threw the stones of the road in the middle of the road, causing inconvenience to the neighbors in transportation. They suspected that we did it on purpose out of anger and sealed a door that belonged to their territory and was convenient and close for us to go home, which made us go home several miles longer than usual. "

My husband began to swear and turned off the tap water gate in a fit of anger. We installed the water first, and in order to save money, they took it from us. This level cut off their water supply. When their water was cut off, they were so angry that they dumped cement piles of stones on the road, completely blocking our driveway home. In this way, we became sworn enemies for the 2000 yuan road repair fee. What is even more unbearable is that both of us have gone to a lawyer, and the lawsuit has been going on for nearly three years, and the legal fee has been as high as 2 million. During these three years, we cannot go home, nor can they live. Now our contradiction is almost to the point of life and death. The house cannot be sold because the lawsuit has not been settled, it is uninhabitable, and it needs maintenance. "

In the process of telling, Rui became more and more excited, his hands began to tremble, his face turned red, and his mood almost reached the brink of collapse. The traditional Chinese medicine doctor knew the root cause of her repeated attacks that could not be improved.

Angry people, liver and gallbladder pain, lead to liver qi and reverse heart fire, qi is not smooth, angry but not comfortable, hurt qi, hurt spirit, hurt the body.

In this medical case, Chinese medicine practitioners use what modern psychology calls "forgiveness therapy", telling patients that "take a step back and be broad; be patient and let the willows blossom and flowers blossom" to guide patients to have positive feelings about people who have hurt them. When the patient said to the doctor, "you have straightened out my sulk and resentment for the past three years", her hands stopped shaking.

03

Learn to forgive

Discord between neighbors, discord between husband and wife, and discord among colleagues can make people fall into an emotional swamp, making people sad, painful, angry, and even resentful. The wisest way to get out of an emotional dilemma is to learn to forgive. This will have long-term benefits to people's emotions and physiology.

Of course, this is not to forgive some immoral behavior or to make excuses for some immoral behavior, but to get people to put aside those extreme negative emotions.

Psychologists suggest that when you encounter a contradiction, you might as well think about it from the following four aspects:

If you can forgive others, you can release a lot of negative emotions.

(2) forgiving others can make you healthier and stronger.

(3) think about why the other party did that in the first place.

(4) if I were the other party, how would I deal with what happened at that time?

Psychologists have found that when people are able to look at conflicts from each other's point of view, there are great physiological changes, with lower heart rate and blood pressure, less frowning, and lower skin conduction rate (skinconductance). These are good indicators of sympathetic nervous system function.

"forgiveness" benefits us both physically and mentally, so if some unpleasant memories can still make your heart beat faster, your blood surging, and your stomach tumbling. Now try to "think for others", rethink those conflicts from each other's point of view, understand each other's situation, and sincerely bless each other. Then, forget those troubles and move on in your life.