Study says stress causes wounds to heal more slowly

A study into how psychological factors can impact healing and recovery has found stress causes wounds to heal more slowly.

Health psychologist Professor John Weinman, from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, said the study showed stress and anxiety can significantly impair wound healing as well as other aspects of recovery.

During the first study, identical small punch biopsy wounds were inflicted on a sample of healthy participants – whose levels of life stress were independently assessed using a standardised questionnaire – and monitored over three weeks.

The results showed that the wounds of the least stressed individuals healed at approximately twice the rate of those of the most stressed individuals

Additionally, the changes in the stress hormone cortisol mirrored these differences in terms of the speed of wound healing.

Speaking at a Psychology of Healing event, Professor Weinman said: “I hope that these findings can now be used to identify psychological interventions to help speed up the recovery and healing process.”