Yahoo Lifestyle How a happy marriage affects your health
New research highlights the impact of relationship quality on blood pressure. Photo: Getty
As the old saying goes, a happy wife means a happy life, but a new study has revealed a happy wife means a healthy life too.
New research published in the Journals of Gerontology sought to examine the effects of stress and a negative marital quality among older couples, specifically the impact on blood pressure. While previous research has looked at how stress and marriage quality affects blood pressure in individuals, this time experts focused on how a person’s blood pressure quality is affected by their own and also their partner’s chronic stress.
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Measuring systolic blood pressure of couples, they found a direct link between stress levels and health markers of partners. Most importantly, the study revealed that the stress felt by women had serious implications for their husbands’ blood pressure, particularly in relationships that were more negative in quality.
“We were particularly excited about these findings because they show that the effects of stress and negative relationship quality are truly dyadic in nature,” lead study author Kira Birditt wrote. “An individuals’ physiology is closely linked with not only his or her own experienced but the experiences and perceptions of their spouses.
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“We were particularly fascinated that husbands were more sensitive to wives’ stress than the reverse especially given all of the work indication that wives are more affected by the martial tie.”
It’s not the first time research has linked stress in a marriage to other negative health markers. Previous studies have revealed that a healthy marriage can protect heart health and one 2014 study even found that men in a happy marriage had stronger bones.
