Be Careful with Academic Rresearch: A Good Relationship Can Slow the Aging Process
The second most searched item on Weibo today is # study claims that single people age faster #.
As soon as the hot search was released, more people began to discuss it under the topic:
Bad relationships get older faster.
You can fall in love younger, but you must get older faster by getting married and having children.
Meet the dregs don't say old, may die faster.
Only love does not marry, only enjoy intimacy without responsibility of course live happy.
Turns out being single makes you younger, huh?
It's the good relationship that keeps you young, and it doesn't have to be about love
Bad relationships can send people straight to heaven
No, poverty makes you age faster
Not single, married problem ~ the key is to have money, health, good mood, good attitude, to delay aging, keep young!
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相关研究
People who are single age faster, according to a paper published in Psychology and Aging by researchers from Duke University's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.
The researchers surveyed 974 participants in Dunedin's study about the characteristics of their romantic relationships over the past 20 years. When researchers analyzed the data, they found that people in relationships were more likely to age slowly than singles, with a biological age difference of 2.9 years over 20 years.
Why do close relationships slow aging? Some scholars have speculated that this may be because intimate relationships can affect an individual's emotions and stress.
However, there is a difference between being in a relationship and being in a relationship. The data show that people in high quality relationships age more slowly than people in low quality relationships. More specifically, people with high levels of partner violence (both verbal and physical) age more quickly than people with low levels of violence. The results of the data analysis still showed that relationship quality and partner violence were indeed independent of biological aging.
One thing to be clear about here: this study isn't encouraging people to jump into relationships blindly, because if they don't think about it, they're likely to keep themselves trapped in bad relationships, which research suggests can accelerate aging. In one sentence: Quality companionship > Happy singleness > Miserable relationships.
How does intimacy work
So why do close relationships slow aging? Some scholars have speculated that this may be because intimate relationships can affect an individual's emotions and stress.
A study in Psychological Science reveals the secrets of intimate relationships and emotions. The researchers asked 16 couples to undergo fMRI scans of their brains while the wife received electric shocks while holding her husband's hand, holding a stranger's hand, or not shaking. The results were interesting:
When they held their partner's hand, their nervous systems, which support emotional and behavioural threat responses, were less activated. To put it colloquially, they were less nervous and more calm.
In addition, there is no denying that having a stable, intimate relationship can help you withstand a lot of social pressures, such as the possibility that you will not be understood by your family and those around you because of your persistent celibacy, such as having no one to share the stress of caring for the elderly, and even more deadly, most of these pressures are long-term and perceived.
And a 2009 study of 647 women found that individuals with higher perceived stress levels had shorter telomeres, which meant they aged faster.
The younger you are, the longer your telomeres are. This chronic, chronic state of stress and stress can even weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to illness.
One analysis, by psychologists who pored over nearly 300 articles on chronic stress and the immune system, found that short-term stress and stress can temporarily boost immunity, but long-term stress and stress can weaken the immune system, especially in the elderly and those who are already ill.
There are many other studies showing that being single makes you more likely to get sick:
A 2017 study in the journal BMJ analyzed health data from 800,000 people and found that single people were more likely to develop dementia, with those who never married having a 42 percent higher risk of dementia than those who stayed married.
In 2018, a study published in Heart showed that unmarried people had a 1.5 times higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared to married people.
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Of course, being single has its own advantages, such as not having to spend time and energy maintaining intimate relationships; More freedom and choice; If you are good enough and rich enough, there is little social pressure to support the elderly as mentioned above...
So, considering your own situation, don't fall in love blindly. In particular, we can't guarantee that our intimate relationship must be of good quality. If we meet people who are not good, we may become "thought that we found a person who sheltered us from the wind and rain, and all the wind and rain were given by him". But the solution is simple, in two words: Run.
