Health Benefits of Healthy Relationships

This is a collaborative post.

Did you know there are benefits of healthy relationships? Humans naturally crave connections and form relationships with other people. Friends, family, and romantic partners are important and can actually improve your health. This can combine with your own healthy eating and exercise habits to improve your physical and mental health.

However, sometimes there are challenges to forming relationships. In addition, not all relationships are healthy. Toxic relationships could do more harm than good for your health. You can learn more about healthy relationships at BetterHelp. 

Let’s look at some of the health benefits of positive, healthy relationships. 

Happier

People in healthy, long-term relationships may lead happier lives than those who are not. Love can bring joy and having a support system can help during challenging times that impact everyone at some point in their lives. 

In fact, this benefit may be substantial enough to decrease the risk of developing depression. Social isolation can increase the risk of developing depression and a healthy relationship makes it unlikely that you would completely isolate yourself. In addition, there seems to be a decline in drinking and substance use in people who are married. 

Lower Blood Pressure

Happy couples are more likely to have a low blood pressure than those who are not in a committed marriage. The same may be true for non-married relationships as well. However, this is only the case with happy marriages and unhappy marriages can actually worsen blood pressure. 

Many experts believe that these results point to the idea that it is not the marriage that matters, but the strength of the marriage and the quality of the relationship. This would suggest that it is not only married couples that experience this benefit, but that those in any healthy relationships may also find their blood pressure lowering.

Reduced Stress and Anxiety

Long-term, stable relationships may positively impact anxiety levels. This may be due to the fact that love can affect the dopamine-reward components of the brain that makes us boost pleasure and mood. In addition, this area is also associated with bonding and there is a correlation with this and less activation in the anxiety production areas. 

In addition, a social support system may also help us to reduce our stress levels. There is a link between social relationships and stress management. If you have other people to turn to when you feel stressed, they can offer you support and guidance and take some of the load off of your shoulders. This could help you feel better about the future and reduce the amount of stress that you feel on a day-to-day basis.

Less Pain

Happy relationships may help to reduce pain. The reasons for this are not entirely understood, but there also seems to be an impact on the healing time from flesh wounds. In fact, happily married couples have a healing time that is almost twice as fast as those who were not in a happy relationship or marriage. 

Some experts believe that this is an impact of the reduction in stress. This could theoretically reduce inflammation, thereby causing a reduction in pain and faster healing times. 

Extended Lifespan

Happy relationships may help you live longer. Not only that, but you may avoid the hospital more and stay for less time when you do have to be admitted. There are several factors that may impact the length of life in married couples. 

First, there are financial benefits that could potentially mean healthier lifestyles. Second, a partner may be likely to encourage you to go for regular routine doctor’s visits or to seek medical attention when you would not do so otherwise. Finally, children may also provide healthy support throughout the later years of your life. 

In addition, loneliness and isolation may be linked to death and relationships prevent those negative feelings. There is also some evidence that people in happy, loving relationships also have better immune systems and get the cold less often. 

Conclusion

Healthy relationships can be highly beneficial and bring a lot of joy into your life. Humans are social creatures and strive to interact with others. We are not meant to be isolated and alone, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it could benefit your mental and physical health to have healthy relationships with friends, family, co-workers, and romantic partners.

Do you agree with these benefits of healthy relationships?