Conversation and Personal Health  

 The psychologist Dr. Manuel Smith, author of the 70s' best-seller, When I Say Know, I Feel Guilty, once told me his research demonstrated that people lacking assertiveness skills were more likely to experience anxiety and depression. That surely made sense to me. It also has made sense that personal self-esteem is related to having appropriate interpersonal skills. Having (or lacking) social skills has psychological consequences.       

But do conversational skills also have consequences for our physical health? As recent medical research has demonstrated, indeed they do.       

Interpersonal difficulties such as misunderstandings, conflicts, slights, and rejections are stress factors. Stress negatively affects our bodily immune systems so that we are more susceptible to disease. Conversely, it seems that having a variety of close and satisfying relationships can strengthen our body's immune system by reducing stress and increasing our feelings of well-being.       

Can we then conclude that having good conversational skills can sustain our personal health? Yes, if it follows that conversation skill can lead to more supportive and varied relationships  which it clearly seems to do.       

To test the relationship between susceptibility to the common cold and number and variety of social relationships, Dr. Sheldon Cohen and colleagues at Carnegie-Mellon University and the Universityof Pittsburgh recruited 276 volunteers (ages ranging from 18 to 55.)       

After assessing volunteers' participation in 12 kinds of social relationships such as parents, children, close neighbors, workmates, religious, each was given a score from 1 to 12. One point was given for each type of relationship when a person spoke to someone in that category at least once every two weeks.       

Volunteers were then given nasal drops of the rhinovirus that causes the common cold. What the researchers found was that although nearly everyone exposed to the virus was infected by it, not everyone infected developed cold symptoms. Those persons having six or more types of relationship were less likely to develop symptoms than those having only one to three types of relationship  who were four times as likely to develop symptoms! These differences were not explained by other factors such as amount of sleep, exercise, etc.       

In another study (1996) Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Dr. Ronald Glaser found that long-married couples who Argued constantly had weakened immune systems, challenging the notion that longevity of marriage would somehow inoculate persons against the stress factors of conflict. In a related study, they found that newlywed couples who exhibited more negative or hostile reactions during a half-hour discussion of marital issues showed a greater decrease in immune system function than did the couples who discussed the issues more positively. Not only do sticks and stones hurt our bones, but words will also hurt us.       

These studies and many others are reported in the groundbreaking book by Dean Ornish, M.D., Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy (1998). The overall conclusion: Close relationships are healthy for our bodies. Having such relationships can be genuinely healing. They help our psyches but also our bodies to pull through when we are physically threatened by infections and disease.       

A recently published study of 30,000 male health professionals concluded that men who have a large number of friends, relatives and other social ties may live a longer, healthier life than their socially isolated peers. Staying healthy and living longer is not simply a matter of practicing good health habits or getting good medical care. A good friend can help keep the doctor away. (American J. of Epidemiology, April 15, 2002 ; 155: 700-709)       

The more adept we are at conversation, the more various and supportive relationships we can develop. If we want a long and healthy life, mastering conversation and creating nourishing relationships seems like a really good plan.