CONGRATULATIONS, you’ve made it through another Christmas day. Hopefully, the dinner went OK, you got all the presents you wanted and you’re now enjoying that quiet time before the New Year celebrations.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t know already when I say that Christmas Day can be stressful. Get everyone together in the same house with a few mulled wines down them and you’re bound to get the odd argument.

But doesn’t an argument with the relatives help clear the air? Especially if you’ve made up and forgotten about it all by the time Harry Potter starts at 3pm.

But what about when the arguments aren’t just confined to bit a bit of bad-tempered bickering on Christmas day? What toll does it take on your health when you find yourself arguing constantly with your husband or wife, or pandering to a demanding relationship with one of your children?

Last week a report published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed a strong link between the shouldering of family demands and an increased risk of angina.

A six-year study carried out in Sweden tracked the heart health of more than 4,500 randomly selected men and women in their 40s and 50s for six years. None had any heart problems at the start of the study in 1999.

The results showed that after six years almost one-in-ten of both men and women (9.5per cent and 9.1 per cent, respectively) had the constrictive chest pain symptoms of angina.

But when the different categories of personal relationships were assessed, it became clear that there was evidence of a link between fraught relationships and the risk of angina.

Excessive worries or demands from other family members were associated with an almost doubling of risk. The higher the degree of worry or demand in a relationship, the higher was the likelihood of reporting angina symptoms.

While arguments with children, friends, and more distant relatives did not increase the risk of angina, the study revealed that frequent arguments with a partner boosted the risk by 44 per cent, while those with a neighbour increased it by a staggering 60 per cent.

Previous research in that field has indicated that rewarding personal relationships are a boost for heart health, so the authors of the report seem to show that the reverse is also true.

The results held true even after adjustment for other influential factors, such as smoking and lack of exercise.

And they indicated that supportive relationships did not counter the negative effects on heart health of worrisome or demanding relationships.

So if you are dreading another year filled with the emotional ups and downs of your family life, what can you do?

In the long term there is counselling, but in the short term there are many ways to diffuse a situation which could turn into a full-blown row.

We spoke to Sue Holden, a North Yorkshire–based counsellor who offers advice and therapy for a range of emotional issues.

Some of the techniques she recommends, while seeming simple, can offer immediate comfort.

“I help people get to the foundation of a problem but in terms of a first aid approach”the best thing is to take a deep breath then count to ten.”

Sue explained how just thinking about your breathing can bring about an instant change in mood.

“By holding your breath, that causes tension but the release causes a deeper relaxation and by counting to ten in between you are taking a pause. That can be enough to change your perspective of a situation,” she said.

“Another way of releasing tension is to go to a safe place to have a shout or scream or shake or arms and legs, that helps relives the body of accumulated tension.

“In terms of communicating with the other person, remember what you love or respect in them. You can tell them that first before you tell them what you are finding difficult.

“But if I could only recommend one thing for communicating within a difficult relationship it would be to listen to the other person’s point of view first then be sure to put your own across your own point of view clearly. Let people know when you feel misunderstood or misheard “It’s more important to know that we have been listened to rather than necessarily being agreed with.

“I personally don’t mind the other person disagreeing with me but I get wound up if I don’t think they have heard my point of view.”

And if you can’t agree on something, Sue recommends simply agreeing to disagree. One final tip from Sue is to think about what the motivations are behind the other person’s actions.

“We judge ourselves on our motives but we judge other people by their actions,” she said. “If you do something that leaves me feeling suffocated, I will judge you as a suffocating person, but if I look to your motives you may actually be trying to protect me.”

Sue Holden has been a counsellor for 22 years and has been an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy since 1998. You can visit her website at susanholden.co.uk