Your romantic relationship can affect your health in that a bad relationship can be extremely stressful and impact you negatively - and vice versa! In this video, psychologist Brenda Wade, PhD, explains how your love life can influence your health.
Relationships and Family
Relationships and family are at the center of human life, and they can have a huge influence on your health. Having good friendships and family support eases stress, helps you avoid mental illness, and gives you energy and courage for living a healthier life.
Relationships start when you give someone else your time and attention. If you find yourself isolated, the best thing to do is reach out through community activities or family connections. Finding ways to help others will make you feel better, and then pay off later when you need support. Good health means caring for yourself, which is infinitely easier to do when other people are also caring for you.
If your relationships are in trouble, take steps to resolve the conflict through communication or seeking counseling. The payoff is greater well-being for all involved.
Recently Answered
-
1 AnswerA
Arianna Huffington , Health Education, answered
As we work through the endless challenges of parenting, there is no substitute for building a little tribe of family and friends around us. When I was growing up, raising children was always the task of an extended family that reached far beyond blood ties. From the time I became a mother in 1989 until my own mother’s death in 2000, she was devotedly involved in the raising of my daughters. And my sister has been like a second mother to them. Unfortunately, the extended family is now increasingly considered an Old World curiosity, like horse-drawn wagons and dinner conversation. When, as a child, I ventured onto the streets of my neighborhood in Athens, I was never far from home because I had learned from my earliest experiences that every home was open to me and any woman on the block would mother me as surely as she would her own child -- with a bandage, a spinach pie, a scolding, or a hug. It’s hard to re-create that experience in America today, but we need to conjure up its spirit.
I learn a lot from talking with other mothers. It gives me perspective and the strength we get only when we’re not alone. This has become all the more important to me since my mother’s death, because being in her orbit made it much harder to cling to my fears. Now the online community we have created on the Huffington Post is a place where parents can put politics aside and share their experiences.
As Huffington Post commenter MJ Reynolds writes, “Talking with other parents and sharing our stories always helps me. I find that I am more understanding of the ‘mistakes’ made by friends or relatives than of my own. Being able to sit with friends and commiserate and laugh over our child’s picky eating or refusal to wear shirts unless the neck tag is cut completely off helps me realize that we are more alike than different.”
-
1 AnswerA
Dr. Mehmet Oz, MD , Cardiology (Cardiovascular Disease), answered
Since there's no reproductive value in kissing, it makes you wonder why kissing evolved. The purpose of kissing is actually to show trust, since you're exposing the most vulnerable part of your body - your lips and tongue (if you're aggressive) - to another person. Kissing feels so good because your lips have the highest number of nerve endings of any body part besides your genitals.
Find out more about this book:
YOU: Being Beautiful: The Owner's Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty
Buy book -
1 AnswerA
Dr. Karen Ruskin , Marriage & Family Therapy, answeredSome negative aspects of online dating include having inflated expectations, and being forced to make quick decisions based on surface information. In this video, psychotherapist Karen Ruskin, PsyD/LMFT, explains the downside of online dating.
-
1 AnswerA
Dr. Karen Ruskin , Marriage & Family Therapy, answeredOnline dating websites and apps have changed how people date; instead of getting dressed up to go out and interact with new people, you can now date from home. Watch as psychotherapist Karen Ruskin, PsyD/LMFT, explains this shift in socialization.
-
3 AnswersA
Dr. Karen Ruskin , Marriage & Family Therapy, answeredSee All 3 AnswersSome precautions you should take for online dating or chats include telling a friend when/where you are meeting someone, and being mindful that you don't know this person yet. In this video, psychotherapist Karen Ruskin, PsyD/LMFT, shares some tips.
-
1 AnswerA
Dr. William B. Salt, MD , Gastroenterology, answered
Relationship is a key concept in complexity science. It refers to the interconnections between and among parts of a system that are as or more important than the component parts themselves. For example, you have billions of brain cells, called neurons. Individual neurons are incapable of thought. Fortunately, for thoughtful people like you, neurons are interrelated and interact with one another.
Find out more about this book:
Still Hurting? FIND HEALTH! Discover What's Behind Your SYMPTOMS (That Doctors Can't Explain)
Buy book -
3 AnswersA
Dr. Mehmet Oz, MD , Cardiology (Cardiovascular Disease), answeredSee All 3 Answers
If you're wondering if you're currently in a healthy relationship, take this one-question quiz:
How would you describe your current romantic relationship?
A. Great, nirvana, I've found the love of my life
B. Strong and steady, but could use more sparks
C. Rocky, bumpy, I'd rather be at work than at home
D. My only relationship is with the washing machine
Clearly, the ideal relationship is one that is categorized more like A than any other answer. One of the amazing things about people is that we all have different goals in our lives. Some of us want to be rock stars and some of us want to study stars; some of us want to cook fish and some of us want to catch them. While our interests, goals, and careers are as different as our facial features, the biggest drive of all is applicable to nearly everyone: Finding that special somebody to call honey, to snuggle with in bed, and to argue with about the best American Idol contestant.
That feeling - of love, of bliss, of emotional connection, of physical fireworks - lies at the heart of how happy we are. We need other people, love other people, crave other people. Without that singular bond on a romantic level (and multiple ones at the family and friends level), it's very hard for most of us to be happy. That said, we should also be clear that our feelings of happiness in relationships extend beyond just the romantic sort. Strong social networks with friends, family, and our pets are strong contributors to our happiness (and the converse is also true: Bad relationships can be a trigger for stress and bad health). While the health benefits of a safe, monogamous sexual relationship are extremely important, research also indicates that strong social ties, like having a best buddy, are pretty good substitutes for most of the health benefits of a spousal relationship. And they are much better than having an unsatisfied or unhappy spousal arrangement.Find out more about this book:
You: Being Beautiful - The Owner's Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty
Buy book -
1 AnswerA
In general, polyamory can work given a great deal of commitment, time, skill, trust and communication. Many people lack adequate quantities of those commodities and thus the complexities inherent in open relationships (contrasted with the complexities inherent in relatively closed relationships) become sticky, uncool, and sometimes no-win situations.
Signs that polyamory might be especially hard for you: you incline toward an anxious attachment style; you don’t believe it’s possible to have sex with someone outside a committed dyad and still be “committed”; you don’t believe it’s possible to love more than one person at a time; you struggle with conflict in relationships, tending to capitulate or compromise on the truth rather than say something that might hurt your partner; you or your partner rarely succeed in staying calm while feeling criticized; you or your partner feel that the other person must be responsible for your own emotional pain; you or your partner resort to name-calling, force, or other forms of contempt/disrespect during conflict. -
1 AnswerA
Dr. Michael Roizen, MD , Internal Medicine, answered
One of the most common ways touch is used to communicate is through the handshake. At its most basic level, the handshake communicates trust, goodwill, or agreement with a common decision. A firm handshake conveys confidence, but one that is too firm can seem threatening, while person with a dead-fish handshake can appear ineffectual. A handshake that uses two hands or extends to the elbow can convey care or condolence. But we also use tons of other "touching" signals - a pat on the back to show support, or a stroke of the arm to show sexual interest.
Find out more about this book:
You: Being Beautiful - The Owner's Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty
Buy book