Stanford psychologist Fred Luskin taking questions on the health benefits of forgiving
This week we’re introducing a new Scope feature that gives readers the opportunity to send questions on a specific topic to our medical school faculty.
Once a month, we’ll select a specific conversation topic and invite a medical school professor or researcher to answer your questions on the subject. We’ll take your questions here and via our @SUMedicine Twitter feed over the course of a week - just send an @reply to @SUMedicine and include the hashtag #AskSUMed in your tweet and we’ll do the rest. Once the submission period ends, we’ll select questions for the faculty member and post them here on Scope with the answers.
To get things started, we’ve asked Fred Luskin, PhD, a research associate at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and co-founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, to respond to your questions about why forgiveness is important for health.
A central goal of Luskin’s research is to show that forgiveness is beneficial for emotional, physical and relationship well-being. His work demonstrates how learning to forgive leads to increased physical vitality, hope, optimism and conflict resolution skills as well as decreased anger, depression and stress. Through the Stanford Forgiveness Project, he has explored forgiveness therapy with people who suffered from the violence in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, and the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11.
In his Stanford Hospital workshop, “Forgive for Good,” and book by the same name, Luskin examines the latest research on forgiveness with the goal of helping patients learn how to release unwanted hurts and grudges in order to reduce hurt and helplessness and to increase confidence and hope.
His work is part of a growing body of scientific research suggesting that failure to forgive may increase a person’s risk for heart disease, mental illness and other ills over his lifetime, and that the act of reconciling with a transgressor can boost one’s health.
To submit your questions to Luskin about the health-enhancing effects of forgiveness, send an @reply message to @SUMedicine and include the hashtag #AskSUMed in your tweet. (Not a Twitter user? Then please submit a comment below.) We’ll collect questions until Friday at 5 pm. In submitting questions, please abide by the following ground rules:
- Stay on topic
- Be respectful to the person answering your questions
- Be respectful to one another in submitting questions
- Do not monopolize the conversation or post the same question repeatedly
- Kindly ignore disrespectful or off-topic comments
Stanford experts taking questions on the @SUMedicine feed will answer a selection of the questions submitted, but not all of them.
Finally - and you may have already guessed this - an answer to any question submitted as part of this feature is meant to offer medical information, not medical advice. These answers are not a basis for any action or inaction, and they’re also not meant to replace the evaluation and determination of your doctor, who will address your specific medical needs and can make a diagnosis and give you the appropriate care.
Previously: Inspiration for high achievers: Try a little respiration and Stanford class teaches students how to live a happier, healthier life
Photo by Ross Griff
January 23rd, 2012 at 12:49 pm
My concern around the issue of forgiveness is for my husband. He is a disabled Vietnam vet who was briefly held as a POW. Although he has overcome these and other tragedies to be a fine human being, he holds a tremendous amount of anger and a negative view of life in general. This seems to be getting worse with age - possibly because his injuries are more painful. Although I have never asked him to “forgive”, I’ve asked him to consider that fact that the anger and negativity are very harmful to him. The effects of it on his health are very obvious. Also, the aura around him is very draining for me. His responses mostly center around no one knowing what it’s like. I have no idea how to help him, after almost 20 years of trying…
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Dr. Luskin: How can taking something to personally endanger your health?
January 24th, 2012 at 9:08 am
How is “Forgive for Good” different than “forgive and forget?”
January 24th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Dr. Luskin: A close family member recently did something that deeply hurt me. While I (technically) have forgiven that person, IÂ’m having a hard time forgetting about it and getting back to normal. How can one truly let go of painful events/experiences?
January 24th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Hi:
Thank you for your imprtant work. Can you tell me - aren’t there some acts that are truly unforgiveable?
Best,
Pavel
January 24th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Hi: Thanks for this good work. I am wondering if there aren’t some acts that are truly unforgiveable?
Best,
PM
January 26th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Is my Unforgiveness hurting me?
January 26th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Hello, before asking you a question,I would like to share my experience with you.
My parents,since my childhood have been always saying me one thing constantly that : what ever and when ever you forgive,that will always fetch you good result.They also explained me the importance and effect of implementing the great feature of “forgiveness” physiologically and psychologically.They always say one thing to me : “The more you practice forgiveness, the more you will grow healthier”. I sincerely obeyed and obeying their words,followed the same and surprisingly,I could see the benefits of forgiveness.But,sometimes,I find people taking advantage of it and I really pity them.
I have a question in my mind.
Why do people take advantage of forgiveness and harm others? and what do they get from that? Don’t they realize the importance of forgiveness that they are harming themselves primarily before hurting or harming others?
January 26th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
How does forgiving differ for people when it is a personal matter vs. business? I find it hard to differentiate my personal feelings from anything I care deeply about. Is there different strategies for forgiving something work related (I care about what happens for success) vs. personally (I care about my own feelings)?
January 26th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
How can failure to forgive increase a persons risk of heart disease and mental illness?
January 26th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
How is forgiving someone else is more about own-self, more about giving peace to own mind and heart?
January 26th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
I personally find it easy to forgive the one who hurt me and be normal with them again. But I find hard to forget few things and I keep thinking of them over and over especially when it is concerned with some close friend of mine. How can I motivate myself to let go of those things that hurt me deeply?
January 26th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
What is forgiveness? What does it mean to be able to forgive? Why is this so essential for oneÂ’s emotional and physical health?
January 26th, 2012 at 11:20 pm
I believe in Forgiveness and i have been doing it till now.But sometimes i feel forgiving mistakes make the opposite person take advantage n will keep repeating the same mistakes thinking he/she will forgive anyway.I believe forgiving keeps us mentally healthy but if its taken as advantage how do we overcome it?do we have to forgive every time when they hurt us? I feel sometimes we need to be hard.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:05 am
Forgiveness might be good for health, but forgiving other person for every wrong thing is it right? Won’t it encourage other person to repeat his mistake?
January 27th, 2012 at 9:16 am
“How is forgiving someone else is more about own-self, more about giving peace to own mind and heart?”
January 27th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
I easily & immediately forgive People who feel sorry or say sorry verbally /non verbally. But it is really hard for me to forgive people who know that they really did bad to me but do not admit it. From my past experiences, i did forget/ came out of such incidents but it takes really long time and i had to suffer at least 3/4 of the recovering time. Its really painful in my heart when i remember such events or person. What do you suggest?
January 27th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Is there any research on the specific physiologic result of grudges, retained anger, bitterness, etc.? Does this latent unresolved anger cause the same sort of increase in cortisol that continued stress can cause?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
When one feels ashamed of their past, or the pasts of their loved ones, how does one learn to forgive? How do you forgive yourself and others, especially if other people never take responsibility for the things that they have done?
January 27th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Thanks for all the great questions for Dr. Luskin! We’re done taking questions for this round of Ask Stanford Med. Dr. Luskin will answer a selection of your questions in a week. We’ll let you know when the answers are posted!
January 27th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
How does forgivness increase our confidence levels?
January 27th, 2012 at 8:03 pm
Sometimes forgiving is good for physical health and mental health as well.. but some people take advantage of that.. i personally believe that if the person who hurt you, is guilty about his/her behavior then you should forgive him/her..i forgive them very easily but the people who don’t feel guilty then i can’t forgive them easily…
January 31st, 2012 at 6:56 pm
what are the possible effects to the person you forgive to a sin that he / she did’nt done?
February 1st, 2012 at 8:17 am
Hello Dr. Luskin, I have a difficult family situation. I have a very large family with many siblings, who for the most part love, and support each other. For over 3 years two of my sisters have had an ongoing riff, that stemmed from an argument. They both have not gotten over it, and forgiven each other. Sadly, it has spilled over to our family activities, and one sister refuses to invite that sister and her children to activities within her home, etc. As you can imagine this is affecting the entire family. Can I help them find a compromise and forgive each other? Or do I stay out of it?
February 4th, 2012 at 11:27 am
I found that I can forgive people for their wrong did but at same time I am not able to forget the words that person had spoken for me..Does it hurt me?
February 12th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
I dont think forgiveness always gives us peace ..! how does it ?
February 13th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
would love to know when the answers are going to be posted….
April 30th, 2012 at 10:28 am
My question is simple. Do you believe in concept-Love your friends and forgive your enemy? because it never gave any satisfaction to me tough i tried?