Can Falling in Love Increase Longevity? Psychology & Science Explained

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
11 replies · 4K views
timeuser84
Messages
59
Reaction score
6
Hi again all, hope you are all doing great and enjoying the spring as well as nice weather. This is sort of a continuation thread of my falling in love thread here that I posted a while back but with a new question witch is: Can I get the same effect to live longer by falling in love, having sex and being happy with myself instead of with someone else? whats the science and/or phycology say about it?
 

Discussion

Biology news on Phys.org
In these types of questions, you must always be careful about concluding a cause/effect relationship in one direction. In fact, the cause/effect might often be in the other direction. If sickness tends to make people unhappy, it would be questionable to conclude that happiness causes improved health. You can say that happiness tends to indicate good health, but that is a lot different from saying that it causes good health. In doing your literature search, you should pay special attention to how well they account for such things.

UPDATE: This link, given by @pinball1970 , addresses the concern I mentioned here. They say this:
"Although it's hard to be sure, marriage seems to deserve at least part of the credit. Some have argued that self-selection would skew the results if healthy men are more likely to marry than men with health problems. But research shows the reverse is true: unhealthy men actually marry earlier, are less likely to divorce, and are more likely to remarry following divorce or bereavement than healthy men." (emphasis mine)
 
Last edited:
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Laroxe and Lnewqban
One things for sure, the less long term stress you have the better both mentally and physically you will be.
Stress, depression etc almost always start out not as physiological problems but as mental ones, for example, setting a goal too high for oneself and then not being able to fulfill it causes stress, anxiety , depression but those in turn cause sleep loss, higher blood pressure etc which in most cases lead to actual physical impact on your immune system etc, so whatever makes you happy is definitely better than whatever makes you sad.Think about it, one of the ways totalitarian governments (and anyone who has a goal like that for that matter) can make someone die without actually killing them is to cause that person go through continual high level of stress/depression.
In theory you could get all the vitamins/nutrition and daily workout while being locked up in a concentration camp, but for those who actually go through that their lives are ruined not just mentally but physically.
And it's not just because of lack of nutrition,
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Sad
Likes   Reactions: pinball1970 and Lnewqban
timeuser84 said:
Hi again all, hope you are all doing great and enjoying the spring as well as nice weather. This is sort of a continuation thread of my falling in love thread here that I posted a while back but with a new question witch is: Can I get the same effect to live longer by falling in love, having sex and being happy with myself instead of with someone else? whats the science and/or phycology say about it?
Can you be more specific? What do mean by someone else? Do you mean one person as opposed to more than one person?
 
timeuser84 said:
Can I get the same effect to live longer by falling in love, having sex and being happy with myself instead of with someone else?
Being happy with yourself sure helps (though I have that weird feeling that your question was not exactly the one I've answered o_O ).
Humanity is 'wired' to have/require/need social interactions of various types to function properly and I can't see why the subtopic of 'love' would be an exception.

Anyway, what's sure: isolation kills.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Tom.G
pinball1970 said:
Married men live longer if that's what you mean.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens-health
My first objection to that article is grouping men who have never married with divorced and widowed men against men who remain married to the same spouse. These all need to be separate groups.

The second objection is that there may very well be a subgroup of unhealthily loners in society. This group may make the numbers look bad for bachelors generally.

The critical question is this: if you are happily single, is there any advantage in trying to become happily married?

The article claims that single men are three times more likely to die of heart disease than married men. That seems extraordinary if the groups are properly controlled for other factors.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Astronuc and pinball1970
PeroK said:
The article claims that single men are three times more likely to die of heart disease than married men. That seems extraordinary if the groups are properly controlled for other factors.
The only real "non environmental" and non substance/radiation etc other physical factor impacted reason for dying of heart disease, above that of the statistical average risk, is, I think stress.

In other words anything that makes you stressful and depressed does cause your blood pressure to change and possibly other chemistry too which then can cause a increased risk of say heart disease.Whether single men are 3 times more stressed out (considering the 3 times increased risk of heart disease) than married men is a risky assumption... :biggrin:
 
artis said:
The only real "non environmental" and non substance/radiation etc other physical factor impacted reason for dying of heart disease, above that of the statistical average risk, is, I think stress.

In other words anything that makes you stressful and depressed does cause your blood pressure to change and possibly other chemistry too which then can cause a increased risk of say heart disease.Whether single men are 3 times more stressed out (considering the 3 times increased risk of heart disease) than married men is a risky assumption... :biggrin:
Yes stress can affect the physiology directly
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361287/

Being unhappy for long periods has the potential to make you ill.

Being happy is better for you.

How that manifests in a marriage must be rather convoluted and each sub group of being alone, living with someone, married, married with kids, single with a kid....etc etc. is tricky.

Also we cannot rerun the clock, individual A dies alone at 81, IF he would have married he would have died at 84 Statistically? Is this what these studies are implying?

This link gives a different spin on things. Consistency rather than status is one conclusion.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...-it-true-single-women-and-married-men-do-best
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: PeroK