How to Get Rid of a Grudge

Just about everyone has held one, but overcoming it and learning to forgive can be good for your health

Erica Sweeney,

AARP

Comments

Published December 03, 2025

a green frowning face among 11 yellow smiley faces

Being wronged can provoke a range of emotions, including shame, anger or sadness. Psychologists say people benefit from taking steps to drop a grudge.

Getty Images

“It was hard for me to understand what a relationship with a mother was like, because I carried such a deep grudge that it became the definition of our relationship, at least inside of me,” says Leid, 55, an author and motivational speaker based in Dallas.

Leid’s feelings stemmed from the fact that she was adopted as a toddler from Korea and never bonded properly with her mom. Growing up, Leid, who is an only child, says her mom rarely praised her, wasn’t affectionate and often compared her to her cousins or kids at church. She was deeply religious and very judgmental. The pair had vastly different personalities, and Leid was closer to her father.

“My grudge came from feeling that I wasn’t good enough” and constantly rejected, she explains, which made her insecure, angry and sensitive to judgment. “Honestly, I didn’t know who I was.”

In a 2023 study published in Qualitative Psychology, researchers defined grudges as “sustained feelings of hurt and anger that dissipate over time but are easily reignited.” And while they are a common response to being wronged by others, they can also harm your health.

In a 2021 study published in OBM Geriatrics, people 50 and older reported that experiencing a severe transgression by a partner or close relation negatively affected how they self-rated their overall physical health.

Due to the mental and physical ramifications of grudge-holding, psychologists and social psychologists say people typically benefit from taking steps to get rid of a grudge.

The impact of grudges

“Scholars do not know for sure why we hold grudges, but we think they do so for self-protective reasons,” says C. Ward Struthers, a professor of social psychology at York University in Toronto who has studied grudges.

Other reasons include a sense of a moral high ground or worrying about being perceived as weak, research published in 2023 in Qualitative Psychology shows.

Being wronged can yield a range of emotions, including anger, sadness and shame. It stems from replaying the event repeatedly in your mind, which is known as rumination, says Robert Enright, an author and educational psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has spent decades studying forgiveness.

Whatever the reason, holding a grudge and stewing on it can raise cortisol levels, or the body’s stress hormone, Enright says. Long-term, high levels of cortisol (from any cause) could increase your risk for anxiety, depression, headaches, digestive problems, sleep struggles and trouble with memory and focus.

Research published in Behavior Research and Therapy shows that rumination in particular may interfere with problem-solving and increase the likelihood of stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia and impulsive behaviors. Harboring grudges may increase heart rate and blood pressure, and it’s also linked to pain disorders, heart disease and stomach ulcers.

Grudges affect our emotional well-being, too. They can “erode trust and strain relationships,” says Noah Webster, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research who led the OBM Geriatrics study. Ultimately, this could lead to loneliness and social isolation.

4 tips for getting rid of a grudge

Forgiveness or otherwise letting go of grudges has been shown to improve health, says Enright. In a 2019 study published in the journal Aging & Mental Health, people in their late 80s who reported being more forgiving also reported less depressive symptoms and a higher life satisfaction.

But getting rid of a grudge can be easier said than done. Webster said it takes time and effort, and you need to be compassionate and patient with yourself as you work through it. Here are some tips:

1. Give it time

Grudges may not always be “eternally negative and all-consuming,” Struthers says. You may feel intense anger and hurt when the incident first happens, but those feelings often dissipate.

In a small 2023 study published in Trends in Psychology, researchers collected stories about forgiveness from 20 individuals over age 65, and all but one said that resentment and emotional injury from an offense faded over time. Most also said that forgiveness had a positive effect on their well-being.

Time may not heal all wounds for everyone, though. Enright says many people need to take additional steps to forgive.

2. Forgive the grudge

According to Enright, people often misunderstand forgiveness. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, moving on, excusing the behavior or even reconciling with the person who wronged you.

“What happened was unfair, is unfair and will always be unfair,” he says. “Forgiving doesn’t change that.”

Instead, Enright defines forgiveness as a “moral virtue,” something you do out of the goodness of your heart, with the hope that the perpetrator will change. You no longer define the person by what they did to you, and accept the situation.

“A paradox of forgiveness is when you’re good to those who are not good to you, good things happen for you within you,” he says. For instance, you may find relief from anger, stress or anxiety.

Enright developed a “Process Model of Forgiveness,” which consists of four phases.

Uncovering: This involves examining the emotional impact of a hurtful experience.
Decision: In this phase, you choose to start healing.
Work: The work phase involves going through the process of acceptance.
Outcome or Deepening: In the outcome or deepening phase, you gain emotional relief from forgiveness.

3. Avoid revenge

It may be tempting to get back at someone who wronged you, but seeking revenge rarely provides the release you’re looking for, says Enright.

“There used to be a therapeutic idea of catharsis, like punching the pillow,” he continues. “That’s fallen out of favor because people have realized, who study this sort of thing, that the more you punch the pillow, the angrier you get; therefore, the cortisol rises.”

Daydreaming about revenge will likely just keep the grudge and the emotions connected to it alive, which, according to Webster, may prevent you from seeing “longer-term satisfaction and well-being boosts.”

4. Seek support

Getting rid of a grudge may seem like an individual process, but Webster says talking to trusted friends or family members could help.

However, if you’ve tried overcoming your grudge on your own without success, it might be time to seek mental health treatment, says Enright, adding, “But you have to be sure that the therapist is on board with the idea of forgiveness.”

He suggests asking potential therapists about their experience treating people with grudges and guiding them through forgiveness. The American Psychological Association’s Search for a Psychologist tool is a good place to start.

‘I forgave my mom’

After Leid’s mother died in 2023 and she began going through some of her belongings, she started to relinquish her grudge. Her parents were Japanese-American, and Leid knew they’d spent time in internment camps during World War II. Looking at old photos, yearbooks and diaries, she started to understand her mother for the first time.

“That helped me understand that maybe her personality, the way she did things, was because she had to put up some emotional guards because that’s how she survived, and she just never had the skill later in life to realize she didn’t need those anymore to interact with people,” Leid says.

Leid apologized to her mom after her death, and this year she decided to forgive her.

“It’s so easy when you hold a grudge, you forget that someone else on the other side has seen things from their point of view and that they’re human as well, and they’re experiencing feelings,” Leid says.

She realized that time is precious, and she’d spent too much of it being angry.

“I’m pretty sure that almost 100 percent of us — if it comes down to a grudge or anger or whatever it is — if it was the last day of our life, we wouldn’t want to be spending our energy on that.”

%{postComment}%

Erica Sweeney is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience covering health, wellness and business. Her work regularly appears in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Business Insider, Everyday Health, Men’s Health and many other publications.