How date nights can improve your health: People who are content with their spouse are healthier.

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Next time you have an argument with your partner, be aware that it could be harming your health.
Happier marriages make for healthier spouses, according to a new 20-year-long scientific study.
Researchers compared the upsides and downsides of healthy and troubled marriages and found a strong connection between the two.
It means that marriage-building activities such as regular date nights could improve an ailing patient's health.
The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, observed how the marital happiness of 1,681 people affected their physical health.
Those polled answered 11 questions asking them how happy they were with various aspects of their relationship.
It delved into factors such as whether their spouse understood them, did activities with them, and provided them with love and affection.
The volunteers were also asked 13 questions about how they dealt with issues like jealousy, anger and infidelity.
Meanwhile, their health was ranked as excellent, good, fair or poor.
Co-author Dr Cody Hollist, a marriage and family therapy expert at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the U.S., said happiness and health go hand-in-hand.
He said: ‘There is no way to tease out whether good marriages lead to good health or whether bad marriages makes you sick.
‘But it is clear that marital quality and health run in tandem.’

 

In order to study the health effect of ageing, the researchers broke the group into those aged 18 to 39 and those aged 40 to 55.
There were some differences between the groups as the younger group tended to have better health but more marital problems.
However, the overwhelming correlation between happy marriage and good health for both groups made the researchers draw their conclusions.

Marriage-building activities such as regular date nights could improve an ailing patient's health

Dr Hollist said: ‘As health worsens, do marriages stay stable?
‘What we found is that there's a relationship between health and happiness for both age groups.
‘If their health is good, their happiness is up.’
However, one surprising finding did emerge as those who began the study in troubled marriages reported improved health over time.
Offering a possible explanation, Dr Hollist said those people were resilient in the face of adversity.
He said: ‘Stressful circumstances can be a wake-up call for some as it can motivate healthier and more adaptive pathways of behaviour over time.

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