Good Relationships Are Good for Our Health
As Congress and the administration barely recover from
the government shutdown and move to address challenging policy issues in
a short-term funding extension, the importance of re-establishing
strong, across-the-aisle relationships, which have historically allowed
government to function, is clear. Bad relationships on Capitol Hill not
only paralyze sound policymaking, they're also creating a truly unhappy
environment: Witness the number of lawmakers retiring or refusing to run when their terms end this fall.
Sen. Joe Manchin – the West Virginia Democrat who has
good relationships with the opposition – recently summed up his feelings
about Congress: "This place sucks." The bad relations that now
characterize administration and Congressional discourse may hold a
lesson for our own health and well-being.
We humans are social. Like other animals that live in
groups, we tend to thrive emotionally when together and our
personalities tend to wither when alone. We derive strength from
community; being with people we love gives us a more positive outlook.
Evidence shows that this isn't only true for our social
well-being. It's becoming increasingly clear that the quality of our
relationships has a major impact on all aspects of our health. A 2010 review
assessed 148 studies involving more than 308,000 hospitalized patients,
extracting data on participants including cause of mortality, initial
health status and pre-existing health conditions, as well as on study
characteristics including length of follow-up and type of assessment of
social relationships. It concluded people with stronger social
relationships had a 50 percent increased likelihood of survival over a
7.5-year post-hospitalization period than those with weaker
relationships.
The 2001 review "Close Personal Relationships and Health Outcomes"
looks at positive impacts from the different aspects of relationships.
The authors find that the kinds of relationships we have (i.e.
co-workers, family, friends), the compatibility of the personalities we
seek out and depth of feelings we share – in other words, the
"meaningfulness" of relationships – have the biggest impact on our
health and well-being.
Even casual relationships, as with co-workers, buffer
work-related stress. But poor work relationships can be detrimental. A
longitudinal study of 13,000 men and women workers found that poor
social support from co-workers, coupled with job stress and
low-decision-making power, was linked to increases in cardiovascular
risk factors including hypertension and hyperlipidemia, as well as
behavioral risk factors, including increased frequency of smoking.
Sociologists have identified
those "qualities of relationships" that help our health. They include
social ties, which foster emotional support (this has indirect impacts
on health by reducing stress, fostering a sense of purpose and improving
mental health) and friendships (which includes being active in clubs
and sports) which allow us to relax, reducing blood pressure and heart
rate; personal control, which allows an individual to feel they guide
their own destiny; symbolic meanings, the connection with spouses,
parents and children, which may spur a greater sense of responsibility
to stay healthier; and mental health, that works with the other
relationship factors to shape physical health.
Touch and eye contact are part of friendship. A University of North Carolina study
found that women who receive more welcome hugs have lower heart rates
and blood pressure. Hugs strengthen the immune system: gentle pressure
on the sternum stimulates the thymus, boosting production of white blood
cells. Research
at the University of California Berkley's School of Public Health found
that eye contact and touch may boost survival of patients with complex
diseases, while researchers
at the University of British Columbia found that touch boosted growth
of premature babies by 47 percent, allowing release from neonatal
intensive care six days earlier than an unstimulated control group.
Romantic relationships
seem especially good for us. For example, married individuals may have
better immune systems. C-reactive protein is a marker of systemic
inflammation in the body. Married men were 44 percent less likely than
other participants to be classified in a high-risk C-reactive protein
group. The effect of being married for men was roughly equivalent to
that of being a nonsmoker with blood pressure and body mass index (that
measures obesity) within normal ranges. On the other hand, bad marriages
may cause harm: In a large sample of women clinically diagnosed with
coronary heart disease, marital stress was associated with a 2.9-fold
increase in the risk of a recurrent cardiac event.
The benefits of good relationships may also play out, at the macro-level, on population-wide "social cohesion." One author of a study
on the impacts of social cohesion on individual health recommends that,
in order to "achieve further advancement in population health,
developed countries should consider policies that would foster a society
with a high level of social inclusion, social capital, and social
diversity." A society that reduces exclusion (disparities and inequality
between races and classes) while strengthening social relations
(interactions and ties at the intimate level, face-to-face), should be a
healthier one.
Overwhelmingly, evidence shows that good relationships
can reduce risk from the effects of long-term health conditions, aid
recovery and even prevent us from becoming ill in the first place. Study
after study finds it is the quality of our relationships that matter
most. Whether spousal, familial or friend, relationships need to be
"meaningful" – committed, robust and resilient not only because they add
to our quality of life but they help protect our health.
In short, an ounce of good relationship may be worth a pound of cure
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