P
eople are made to have relationships. The amazing thing is how good relationships can have a positive benefit on our physical health. Let’s look at some of the data1:
- Married people have fewer doctor’s visits and shorter hospital stays
- Married people have less depression, substance and alcohol abuse
- Happily married people have lower blood pressure (unhappily married people have the worst blood pressure)
- People with loving, stable relationships have less anxiety
- Long term couples have less headaches and back pain
- Social support helps stress management
- People in loving relationships get less colds and flu
- Wounds on people in positive relationships heal faster
- Married people live longer
- Happiness is more positively correlated with strong family relationships than income level
- People who had warm relationships with their parents have half the major diseases later in mid-life as those who did not have warm parental relationships2
- Men and women who have heart bypass surgery are over 2-3 times as likely to be alive 15 years later if they are happily married. Even unhappily married men were 1.5 times as likely to survive as unmarried men.3
My wife, Caryl, and I have a very happy marriage, and I’m sure it has supported my mental and physical health on a number of occasions. In 2004, I was in a propane fire that took the skin off my face, arms, and knees. I had to have dressing changes twice a day, and I’m sure that I would have had to be in the hospital or nursing home for weeks without her there to do the care. Throughout that time, I was able to maintain a positive attitude, keep a sense of humor, and get by with a minimum of medicines despite tremendous pain. I credit Caryl for that success.
Going back further in time, Caryl provided the physical and emotional ‘glue’ needed to keep our home together while I was going through medical school and residency. These years were physically and mentally draining with work weeks that were typically 80 to over 100 hours per week. (This was before laws capped the resident work week at 80 hours maximum). I think of these years as mental ‘boot camp’, analogous to how marines and navy seals train, but only for the mind. During this time, Caryl was the life preserver that kept me afloat. 
How can people have such a positive relationship? Here are my suggestions:
- Keep a positive attitude and work towards common goals. Be a team.
- Support each other. Give and receive. Above all, show gratitude whenever you receive.
- Communication is key. One program that has been very successful is Marriage Encounter.
Now folks reading about these health benefits that are not in a positive relationship may be a little disheartened. This should not be the case as there are also great rewards to having a good support system even if not in a relationship. We’ll look at this next time.
Finally, on another note, I was talking about all this to my wife and she was inspired to pen this little ditty:
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,
If your happy and you know it and your spouse will surely know it,
If you’re happy and you know it kiss your spouse!
It doesn’t come close to rhyming, but it works for me. Gotta go now. Bye.
- Rauh, Sherry, ’10 Surprising Health benefits of Love’, Web MD Health News, 2009. MedicineNet.com.
- Russek, Linda G. and Schwartz, Gary E., ‘Feelings of Parental Caring Predict Health Status in Mid-Life: A 35-year follow-upnof the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, February 1997, Volume 20, Issue 1, pp 1-13.
- Consumer Reports News, ‘Happy Marriage, Healthy Heart’, August 22, 2011.