Love in times of plague. It not only gives you wings, but also heals.

First, the data: in Poland , every fourth home is run by a single person. We have 7.5 million singles ¹ . 14% of people over 65 - often widowed - spend time alone ² . Meanwhile, available research and reports clearly show that loneliness has a huge negative impact on the quality of life. Without close relationships, without the feeling of being loved and important, we feel bad. Also physically.

Love heals wounds, regulates blood pressure and stress levels.

So let's get to the point: what does love do to us? The US Department of Health and Human Services analyzed the health status of married couples and found that people in such relationships make fewer doctor visits and spend less time in hospitals when they do go to them ³ . Researchers from the Ohio State University Medical Center, having analyzed the time it takes for wounds to heal, concluded that this process was twice as fast in the case of couples who treated each other with warmth and tenderness than those who did not show such feelings to each other. . The results of their research were published in the "Archives of General Psychiatry" ⁴ . Nay! The feeling of being close to someone affects how we feel pain. In short, we suffer less if we have someone close to us .

Research published in the "Annals of Behavioral Medicine" also shows ^that a happy marriage is good for blood pressure . In the study, people in happy relationships had the highest blood pressure, followed by single people, and finally those in unhappy marriages. And this is not the end, because love makes us less vulnerable to the risk of depression, anxiety disorders and addiction; love reduces the level of stress and makes it easier to cope with when it occurs.

Love prolongs life.

All this translates not only into a better quality of life, but also into its length. A study conducted a decade ago shows that lonely people are at greater risk of premature death ⁶ . It was 24%! Another, smaller study on patients after surgery for coronary artery disease shows ⁷ that those who were in relationships were 2.5 times more likely to be still alive and healthy 15 years after surgery. These chances increased to 3.2 times if the marriage (relationship) was happy.

Is this love, is this baby?

Researchers indicate that the positive health effects of love are not related to the euphoric state of falling in love, when our hormones are raging (at this stage it is mainly about phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin). Constant, mature love that gives a sense of security is much more beneficial for health . This type of relationship means that people in it suffer less from depression and anxiety, have better blood pressure and... heal faster.

"There is no evidence that the passionate phase of falling in love has a positive impact on health (...) People who are in love describe this state as fantastic and terrible at the same time," said Dr. Harry Reis, co-author of the "Encyclopedia of Relationships" in one of the interviews. ⁸ . "There is scientific evidence that being in a long, satisfying relationship makes us feel better in various areas," he adds. Most of the research concerns marriages, but the researcher emphasizes that, in his opinion, the health-promoting properties of love also apply to close relationships with a life partner, friend or parent . Yes, now we have scientific evidence of what has been written about in (better or worse) literature for centuries: without love we are like idiots. Moreover, it is sickly.

On the other hand, and this results from, among others, from the research of John T. Cacioppo9 ^, lonely people are exposed to greater stress, heart problems, depression and sleep disorders. Lonely people have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which causes an increase in blood pressure, and in addition, lonely people have a lower production of white blood cells , which lowers their immunity. In such a situation, the body is more susceptible to inflammation and many related diseases.

Application? Let's make Love!

Bibliography:

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