Being lonely can almost literally break your heart but a happy relationship boosts our immune system, helps us avoid depression and reduces our risks of cancer and heart diseases.
Studies have shown that those who confessed to being lonely suffer from raised blood pressure at times of stress. That blood pressure rose with age in lonely men and women, while it remained more stable in people who said they were content.
These facts don’t mean that living with the person you love doesn’t have its challenges. While a lot of us are good for the health of our partners, some might not be, as the way our partner live has a huge impact on us.
So, could your man actually make you ill? Does he smoke? Researchers have now found that passive smoking is far more a risk in the home than anywhere else.
A study by the Imperial Cancer Researcher Fund’s Health Behaviour Unit found that someone living with a person who smokes 15 cigarettes a day suffers four times the exposure of tobacco smoke than an individual living in a smoke-free household.
“These findings are very worrying”, says Professor M. Jarvis, who led the study. “A lot of people are being exposed to a significantly increased risk of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases. Does he snore? According to the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association, 21 per cent of middle-aged men and 28 per cent of middle-aged women snore.
The most common reasons for this are obesity, smoking and drinking alcohol. “Half the calls we get are from the partners of snorers who may be getting no sleep at all because of it”, says the associations’ director.
“Think how bad you feel when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep—all headache and bad-tempered. Then think about someone who feels like that day in, day out, for years because their partners snore, it can be devastating”.
Does he disturb your sleep? Some of us simply can’t drop off next to another person because we’ve always been used to sleeping together, but in recent decades we have taken infants out of the family bed to sleep alone”. The specialists also believe that lack of sleep can cause our immune system to run down. It can reduce our levels of concentration and make us liable to mood swings and depression.
For instance, sleeping for only four hours a night, even for less than a week, affects the body’s ability to process and store carbohydrates and regulate hormonal levels. The changes mimic the hallmarks of advanced aging— so we start looking old more quickly”.
Does he drink? When you move in with a man who likes his booze, you find that the fridge is suddenly stacked full of beer and there’s always a bottle of wine chilling away nicely. It’s hard to say no when someone wants you to join them in a sociable tipple.
“Whereas you might not have bothered opening a bottle of wine just for yourself, you can easily drink half a bottle”, continued the specialist. “Increased alcohol consumption is probably one of the most common reason for weight gain. Alcohol is not usually a substitute for food, but an addition to the diet. But it is almost as fattening as fat”.
Is he lazy? Left to your own devices you might walk to a friend’s house or to the shops. But what if your man drives everywhere?
Or, worse still, what ifhe doesn’t go anywhere at all? “Most single women are out and about in the evenings and at weekends”, says the specialist. “As part ofa couple though, they are more likely to stay in with a take-away, a bottle of wine and a video.
If you used to walk everywhere before, don’t start accepting lifts or taking the car. One of the overwhelming factors in the increase in obesity which has seen it reach almost epidemic proportions, is lack of activity, so keep moving.
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