Marriage and Blood Pressure

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

25 Mar 2008 12:58 PM

Make all the jokes you want about how being married can raise your blood pressure... a new study from Brigham Young University has shown that a happy marriage can lead to lower blood pressure.

In fact, a happy marriage seems to have some big health benefits.

Study participants included more than two hundred married adults and 99 single adults. All participants wore a blood pressure monitor for a full day and night. Basically, the researchers wanted to see blood pressure levels during a normal day -- periodic readings at a clinic don't give an accurate representation of the changes in blood pressure throughout any given day.

Overall, happily married couples scored four points lower on blood pressure readings than single adults or unhappy married adults. Married folks had a bigger blood pressure dip during sleep, too. Research has indicated that people with blood pressure that stays high throughout the night are at a higher risk of cardiovascular problems. If your blood pressure dips while you sleep, you're at lower risk of developing cardiovascular problems.

Researchers feel that these results demonstrate that a happy marriage is a great way to protect your health. So should you run out and get married? Not necessarily -- an unhappy marriage won't do you much good. Unhappily married adults had the highest blood pressure out of everyone in the study.

And good friends can only get you so far -- a supportive social network didn't translate into lower blood pressure for single or unhappily married adults.

Why does a happy marriage help your health? Spouses can encourage healthy habits in each other -- like sticking to a healthy diet and keeping up with annual check-ups. Good habits are contagious, just like bad ones can be! Many people also have a steady, strong source of emotional support in their spouse.

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Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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