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Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Bad marriage worsens health
By Zosimo T. Literatus, R.M.T.
Breakthroughs
A hostile marriage is hostile to your health. Routine sharp words and slammed doors can both cut your health into pieces and flatten the fragments to the ground.
A recent study, led by Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR) at Ohio State University (USA), shows that spouses living in hostile relationships significantly impede their bodies’ ability to heal.
The study involved 42 married couples, well-educated, ageing 22 to 77 years, and had been married for an average of almost 13 years, each couple admitted to a hospital for a 24-hour testing that involves two sessions of interactive discussion.
In the first session, the couples engaged in two 10-minute supportive discussions on things each spouse wanted to change about himself or herself.
In the second session, the couples discussed marital topics selected to provoke an argument. Both sessions were videotaped and analyzed for evidence of hostility.
Questionnaires were completed before and after, to gauge hostility levels and general marital satisfaction. To check the impact on healing, the researchers created eight tiny blisters on the arms of each spouse prior to the sessions and measured for changes in pro-inflammatory cytokine activity.
Results, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry (December 2005), show generally hostile couples heal the slowest (60 percent that of less hostile couples), followed by non-supportive and supportive talks, and then fastest being with friendlier couples. The cytokine activity in the blood near the wound site rose higher following conflict discussions than following supportive interactions, indicating increased inflammation of the blisters.
“We didn’t look at people who were ‘just having a bad day,’” Kiecolt-Glaser says, “and so we saw that there is a clear physiological cost to chronic bickering that could have negative long-term consequences.”
Marital conflicts often hint on a neglected relationship, lost in the hubbub of daily distractions, forgetting in the process that the spouses are both in this together.
“Many marriages would be better,” counsels Zig Ziglar, famous author of Courtship after Marriage (1990), “if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.” (For comments and suggestions, email to: ztliteratus6046@lycos.com)
(December 28, 2005 issue)
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