Stress and the Single Life

Married people live longer than never married or divorce adults. That’s a fact from decades of health research. This finding has always been puzzling to those people among us who are steadfastly single—along with the happily divorced and unhappily married. The single life offers would-be health perks to all three demographic groups, such as doing what you want with your free time, deciding how clean (or not so clean) your home needs to be and a diminished amount of conflict in intimate relationships.

Of course, there are arguments in favor of marriage, such as more access to health care. Female partners are highly persuasive about getting husbands and significant others to the doctor/chiropractor/nutritionist/massage therapist/etc. Companionship reduces depression, alcohol abuse or both. There are more pluses, such as the finding that married individuals tend to have lower blood pressure than singles and the widowed.

But that’s digressing. The point is, go ask 10 of your friends, add a comment below, bring it up at book club, raise the topic at an office event: Is being single more stressful and less healthy than being married. The guess here at Alternative Health Journal is that at least half of those people will say no, that being single seems to have some potentially more calming possibilities. It’s unlikely everyone you ask will quickly agree that married life is less stressful and suggests a longer life.

A number of 2008 studies confirm some of the puzzlement. It seems maybe being single over the last 20 to 30 years might not be as stressful as previous times in our history:

Michigan State University researchers discovered that never-married men are healthier and live longer than never married men from 30 years ago. "An important potential reason is that never-married men have greater access to social support now than they did in the past,” writes Hui Liu, a sociologist and lead professor of the study. “It used to be that having a spouse was important for social support and a social network."

A Brigham Young University study showed that happily married people have lower blood pressure than singles, especially during sleep-time hours. But, in a trend that is showing up in other research, the scientists found the blood pressure of singles might be healthier than unhappily married individuals. All of the men and women in the study wore blood pressure monitors for a 24-hour period. The unhealthy marrieds experienced the least healthy daytime blood pressure of all groups.

OK, it’s not all good for the single life. Swedish researchers reported this summer than Finnish adults (what, they couldn’t find enough Swedes) who remained single into their 40s were at increased risk for dementia later in life compared to Finns who were married before turning 40ish. The study of nearly 1,500 individuals over 21 years was presented at a major Alzheimer’s Association conference in Chicago earlier this month.  The educated guess is that social interaction of couples helps ward off dementia, but all parties were quick to agree more research is needed.