Researchers asked older adults about the one regret that weighs on them most, then measured their stress hormone through the day.
Researchers Measured the Stress Hormone of 183 Older Adults. The Ones With the Most Intense Life Regrets Made More of It Every Morning.
In a 2007 study in Psychology and Aging, Carsten Wrosch and colleagues found that the more intense the regret, the more cortisol people made in the morning.
Most people past a certain age carry at least one regret. We tend to treat it as a feeling, something private that sits in the mind and stays there.
A pair of studies of older adults suggests it may reach further. In the first, **older adults with more intense life regrets made more cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, and reported more physical symptoms.**
It is a careful result with real limits, and it is worth reading closely, because the second study tried something small and hopeful: three days of writing.
1. They asked about the regret that weighs most, then collected saliva for three days
The first study followed **183 older adults in Montreal, aged 63 to 94.** Each person named a major life regret, then rated how strongly they had felt a set of emotions about it in recent months, from sorrow and helplessness to anger to feeling nostalgic.
On typical days at home, they also **collected saliva five times a day,** starting at waking, so the researchers could track cortisol. They reported any acute physical symptoms too.
Not just how people said they felt, but a body measure taken alongside it.
2. The more intense the regret, the more cortisol after waking
People with more intense regrets **secreted a larger total volume of cortisol over the day,** mostly because of a **steeper rise in the first hour after waking.** They also **reported more acute physical symptoms.**
The link held up after the researchers accounted for things like age, sex, income, chronic illness and general negative mood. Here is the honest limit: this first study took one snapshot in time. **It shows regret and cortisol travel together. It cannot show that regret caused the change.**
Intense regret and a stressed body went together. The study could not say which led to which.
3. Then 103 older adults wrote for three days
In the second study, **103 adults aged 60 to 87** were randomly split into two groups for 20 minutes of writing a day, three days in a row. One group wrote about **the regrets of people their own age, about outside factors beyond their control, and about their current and future goals.** The other group simply wrote about ordinary events of their day.
Three months later, **despair-related regret emotions had dropped only in the group that did the first kind of writing.** For people who began with intense regret, **sleep problems rose in the other group but not in the writing group,** though that difference was modest and the researchers did not see the same pattern for cold symptoms. The authors also note they could not tell which of the three writing tasks did the work.
A short, structured exercise eased the weight of regret for many. It was not a cure, and it was not about telling a life story.
Intense life regrets [were] associated with a larger volume and a steeper morning rise of cortisol secretion and with higher levels of acute physical symptoms.Abstract, Wrosch, Bauer, Miller, and Lupien (2007), Psychology and Aging
What you get with LifeScribe
- A 2007 study in Psychology and Aging followed 183 older adults aged 63 to 94 and measured cortisol from saliva.
- More intense life regrets went with a larger daily cortisol volume, a steeper morning rise, and more physical symptoms.
- In a second study of 103 adults, three days of structured writing lowered despair-related regret three months later.
- Built on documented research: Wrosch, Bauer, Miller, and Lupien, Psychology and Aging, 2007.
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What did the study actually find?
In a 2007 study in Psychology and Aging, older adults with more intense life regrets secreted more cortisol over the day, with a steeper rise after waking, and reported more acute physical symptoms. A second study found despair-related regret dropped after a three-day writing exercise.
Who ran it?
Carsten Wrosch and Isabelle Bauer of Concordia University, Gregory Miller of the University of British Columbia, and Sonia Lupien of the Douglas Hospital Research Center. It appeared in Psychology and Aging, volume 22, pages 319 to 330.
Does this prove regret harms your health?
No. The first study was a single snapshot, so it shows regret and cortisol travel together, not that one causes the other. The second study followed people over three months and found intense regret was linked to more cold symptoms later, but most health measures were self-reported.
Does the study say anything about telling your life story?
No. The writing exercise was about peers' regrets, outside factors and future goals. It did not test recording stories or sharing them with family, so this page makes no claim about that.
https://getlifescribeapp.com/blog/the-regret-showed-up-in-the-morning