According to a new study, this might just save your life! Okay, that might be an understatement. But there is fascinating – and compelling – research suggesting you’ll enjoy better health and live a longer life. The longer you stay in this particular situation, the better your chances of living a longer, healthier life.
And just what is this situation?
This situation is something that you pursue. It can actually bring you happiness and then turn around and bring you sadness. It has many sides to it and numerous health benefits. And to top it all off, it’s linked to a longer life.
It can cause you to:
- Have fewer strokes and heart attacks
- Have a lower chance of becoming depressed
- Be less likely to have advanced cancer at the time of diagnosis and more likely to survive cancer for a longer period of time
- Survive a major operation more often
What is it?
Surprisingly, it’s MARRIAGE. Marriage has been linked to better health and a longer life for these reasons and more. Even though they may drive you crazy with their snoring, or push you to the brink of madness sometimes with any number of strange and annoying habits – your spouse could be making you stronger, and healthier.
According to a new study, older people who are married are physically fitter, have stronger grips and walk further and faster than their unmarried counterparts. They live longer and are healthier. This doesn’t mean that just being married automatically provides these health benefits. So don’t jump into it for that reason alone. People in stressful, unhappy marriages may be worse off than a single person who’s surrounded by supportive and caring friends, family, and loved ones.
How does this work?
Given the growing body of evidence linking marriage with better health, it’s worth asking why such a connection might exist. A number of researchers have explored this question. Here are some of the prominent theories for living longer and healthier.
It’s all about immune function.
Studies have found that people in happy relationships have stronger immune function than those who are not. And, cortisol tends to be released in lower amounts in married people as compared with those who are single. That may be important because cortisol levels tend to reflect levels of stress, and high cortisol levels can impair immune function.
Your behaviour improves with marriage.
Married people may take fewer risks, eat better, and maintain healthier lifestyles, on average, compared with single people. There is also evidence that married people tend to keep regular doctors’ appointments and follow doctors’ recommendations more often than single people.
Less chance of developing mental illness.
Married men and women are also considerably less likely to develop severe mental illness, according to a 1991 America study. Social psychiatrists Lee Robins and Darrel Regier published a paper showing how “married people have significantly lower rates of severe depression. And at least half the likelihood of developing any other major recognized psychiatric disorder than never-married, cohabit-ing or divorced people.”
You live for longer.
The BIG one – longevity. Research has continuously shown that by jumping the broom you are effectively adding a couple of extra years to your life. And, in some instances, up to ten. The most-cited study on this subject was penned by Dr Ilene Siegler and her research team from the Duke University Medical Centre. After studying almost 5,000 individuals born in the 1940s, the authors observed how stability and change in the patterns of midlife marital status affected health risks. They discovered that having a partner through middle and old age is protective against death. Those who never married were more than twice as likely to die early than those who had experienced a long, stable marriage throughout the majority of their adult life.
The reasons married people tend to live longer are not fully understood, but researchers hypothesized that the benefit could be a result of the economic advantages of marriage. However, they found no significant link between income level and the probability of death.
Robert Coombs, “Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review,” Family Relations 40 (1991): 97-102. When it comes to extending life, marriage – not money – consistently predicts the benefit.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
9) Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor:
10) If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
