If you want to lower your blood pressure, then marriage seems to be the way according to a study by Brigham Young University professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad.

The study looked at 204 married adults and 99 single adults. The group wore portable blood pressure monitors that recorded their blood pressure at random intervals over a 24-hour period. The study concluded that happily married adults scored four points lower on their blood pressure readings than those single adults with a strong social network. In contrast, unhappily married adults tended to have higher blood pressure than the happily married adults and single adults.
To determine participants’ quality of relationships, all participants completed a roster of friends in their social network and answered questions about those relationships. Likewise, married participants also completed questionnaires on the quality of the relationship with their spouses.
“There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage,” said Holt-Lunstad, whose findings will be published March 20 in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. “It’s not just being married that benefits health – what’s really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage.”
To add to this research, Holt-Lunstad now plans to study couples participating in marriage counseling to see if improvement in the marriage translates into improved health.

Source: Brigham Young University

• Do you think that a difference of four points in blood pressure is significant?