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Why forgiveness might be the best medicine you can take
12th May, 2026 01:04 PM
There is a saying many of us grew up hearing: forgive and forget.
As a concept, forgiveness often gets filed under religion or personal virtue. But a growing body of scientific research is making a compelling argument that it belongs just as firmly in the category of health interventions.
And not in a vague, feel-good way. We are talking about measurable changes. Lower blood pressure, reduced stress hormones, better sleep, and in some studies, a longer life.
What happens in your body when you hold a grudge
When you replay a painful memory or nurse a resentment, your body treats it much like a physical threat.
Your heart rate climbs. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, rises. Blood pressure spikes. Do this often enough, and the cumulative effect begins to wear on your cardiovascular system, your immune system, and your ability to sleep soundly.
Research has long linked chronic stress to inflammation, and inflammation sits at the root of many of the conditions we spend our lives trying to avoid — heart disease, diabetes, and even certain cancers. Unforgiveness, in other words, keeps the body in a low-grade state of alarm long after the original injury has passed.
A 2023 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health by psychologists Justyna Mróz and Kinga Kaleta found that “forgiveness is positively related to mental health measured as well-being,” while people who harboured resentment showed measurably higher rates of anxiety, social dysfunction, and depression.
What the evidence says about the physical gains
The data on blood pressure alone is striking. Studies have consistently found that people who score higher on forgiveness measures have lower resting diastolic blood pressure – the number that reflects how hard your heart is working between beats.
Research has also shown that more forgiving individuals carry lower levels of cortisol in their system, suggesting that letting go genuinely quiets the body’s stress response over time, not just in the moment.
Sleep is another area where forgiveness shows up clearly in the data. Psychologist Charlotte Witvliet and colleagues at Hope College in the United States have found that holding onto grievances (specifically through rumination, replaying an offence over and over) disrupts sleep quality, while the deliberate practice of compassionate reappraisal improves it.
The connection is intuitive: a mind that is not rehearsing its wounds at night is a mind that can rest.
Then there is the lifespan question. A long-running study drawing on data from over 54,000 female nurses, conducted through Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that those who reported greater forgiveness of others had better overall health outcomes across a wide range of indicators.
The implication is that the benefits of forgiveness, like compound interest, tend to grow the more consistently it is practised.
It is worth being clear about what forgiveness actually is, because for many people, the reluctance to forgive comes from a misunderstanding. Forgiveness is not excusing harmful behaviour.
It is not pretending an injury did not happen. It is not even reconciliation – you can forgive someone you will never speak to again.
At its core, it is a decision to stop carrying the weight of someone else’s actions inside your own body.
