(HealthDayNews) -- When ordinary people use the word "stress," they mean emotional stress, like job and family problems. But when professionals say stress, they mean physiological stress, like cancer, or burns. And when they talk of delayed healing due to stress, they really refer to physiological stress only.
But according to the journal, Psychosomatic Medicine, emotional stress can alter your healing rate, just as physiological stress does.
A team of psychiatrists and dentists from Ohio State University took biopsies from the mouths of 11 volunteer dental students. The first biopsy was done during the summer vacation, and another during exam week.
The biopsy done during exam week took three days longer to heal, that's 40 percent longer, than the one performed during the calm days of the vacation period.
