What Reveals A Good Marriage? A Low Blood Pressure!

We know instinctively that a ‘good’ marriage is more likely to be associated with less stress and more health. However, Brigham Young researchers have taken this a step further, analyzing the influence of marital status, relationship quality, and social support on psychological and cardiovascular health. They reported their findings online in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

The study included 204 married and 99 single people. They wore devices to record their blood pressure at random times over a 24-hour period. Married participants completed questionnaires about their marriage. High marital quality (whatever that may mean!) was linked to lower blood pressure (averaged over 24 hours), lower stress, less depression, and a greater degree of satisfaction with life. Having a support network didn’t make any difference.

When those with a low quality of marriage were compared with singles, it was found that poor marriage satisfaction was linked with higher average blood pressures than that recorded in single persons. In fact, the systolic blood pressures of the unhappily-married were about 5 mmHg higher, entering a range that’s called ‘pre-hypertension’.

This means it’s not just enough to look at marital state (yes/no) when assessing someone’s stress level, it’s the marriage quality that counts . . .