Tough Job? Get a Good Marriage. Or Vice Versa

The important thing, according to research conducted at the University of Toronto, is that you choose one from column A and one from column B. The Scientific American reports that Dr. Sheldon W. Tobe and colleagues followed 229 men and women for one year, all of whom
were living with a spouse or partner and were free from
hypertension at the study’s outset. Tobe and his team looked
specifically at couples’ "marital cohesion," or how much
couples support one another. Study participants wore ambulatory
monitors that checked their blood pressure throughout the
course of a typical working day, at the study’s outset and
again one year later. Sciam reports that those reporting high levels of job strain who had low
marital cohesion had a 3-point increase in their systolic blood
pressure, the top number in a blood pressure reading. On the
other hand, those with very cohesive marriages who were
experiencing job strain had a 3-point drop in their systolic
blood pressure. It’s worth noting that when the researchers looked at men and women separately,
the relationship among stress, blood pressure and marital
cohesion remained strong for women, but it disappeared for men,
suggesting the effect may be gender-specific.