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Strengthen Your Marriage & Protect Your Physical Health

There are fewer things in life more important than the health of our mind, our spirit, our body, and our relationships. And yet sometimes we act to the contrary. For example, we force our minds to juggle several things at once—far beyond what is reasonable.

Yes, the mind is an absolutely incredible and capable part of our being. No argument here. But you and I were never designed for the degree of multitasking we too often engage in. The result is that our brains’ ability to effectively and productively process information is hampered.

You might have read about this in The Autumn of the Multitaskers by Walter Kirn. While he presents a humorous picture of the insanity of trying to do many things at once, the effect upon our brain is not so funny. As you know, good decision-making, in part, is limited to our ability to effectively process information.

Need I say more? It’s pretty clear isn’t it—a strong, healthy mind is invaluable to quality of life.

And what of the way we attend to our spiritual or bodily needs? I suspect that most of us could find plenty of room for doing a better job in caring for these areas of our life as well. With heart disease being the leading cause of death for men and women today none of us should be taking our physical health for granted. Yet 41 million Americans are believed to have pre-diabetes. What is it that drives us on in habits proven to decrease our quality of life?

By now you may be wondering what all this health-related talk has to do with strengthening your marriage. Well, in fact, plenty.

Just as we can fail to care for our mind, and bodies we can also neglect the health of our marriage, which in turn has a tremendous impact on our physical health. Although we’ve had numerous studies on the benefits of marriage for men, women, and children, researchers can now explain the relationship between marriage and our physical health.

For instance:

• Married people tend to check in with each other on their health (are we active, eating well, getting adequate sleep, healing from injuries, handling stress well, scheduling important health-related procedures, etc.) ensuring that what needs to be done to safeguard good health is done.

• Compared to women in moderate and low-satisfaction relationships, women in highly satisfying relationships are significantly less susceptible to cardiovascular disease.

• Couples able to be supportive and constructive during arguments have a better immune system response than those who resort to negative and/or hostile interaction.

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