Successfully Managing Relationships
In the early 1620s English poet John Donne wrote an essay called Meditation XVII in which he wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Over 300 years later, Father Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk living in an abbey in the Kentucky backwoods, used this phrase as a title of one of his many books, No Man is an Island. In the prologue, Merton quotes St. Paul, “We are all members one of another.” Indeed we are.
In managing stress, LifeNuts realize the importance of maintaining healthy relationships and they continually strive to energize and preserve them. But many Americans don’t have such views. In the early 1980s the average amount of quality time spent by a husband and wife in the U.S. was 37 minutes a week.
Marriage and family remain the core of society. The National Institute for Aging funded a study that examined mortality rates and satisfaction levels in married couples when compared to unmarried couples. Dr. Linda Waite, professor in the department of sociology at the University of Chicago, authored this study, ‘Til Death Do Us Part: Marital Disruption and Mortality, in The American Journal of Sociology in 1995. She found that married couples enjoy better financial prosperity and have a lower risk of dying when compared to those who are not married. These benefits increase as the length of the marriage continues.
From a health and longevity standpoint, divorce and unhappiness in relationships cause problems. Divorced people have a higher mortality rate than those who don’t divorce. Recently, researchers found that divorced people have 20% more health issues than non-divorced – including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. This study, published in 2009 in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, looked at over 8,600 middle-aged people and documented many aspects of their lives such as diet, exercise, and levels of depression. Numerous studies, done at other universities, support these findings.
In spite of increasing demands on their time that take their attention away from family, LifeNuts are bullish on marriage and the family unit. Distractions abound these days. Yet, it’s much easier to communicate accurately, eyeball to eyeball or on the phone, than through electronics where misinterpretation is common. Email and texting lack important aspects of communication like body language, inflection of voice, and emotions. People communicating this way often assume the recipient of the message understands it from the sender’s viewpoint. If you’ve never been irritated or become angry (No, no, not cortisol again) after receiving a text or an email, you’ve not received very many. Yes, many experts have researched this and agree that talking in-person or on the phone can avoid miscommunication, can build relationships, and can deal with an issue more quickly and more efficiently than if done electronically.
In remote regions where centenarians abound, such as the Nicoyan peninsula of Costa Rica, families don’t have such electronic distractions. In The New England Centenarian Study, researchers found that 50% of the centenarians had parents, grandparents, and siblings that also lived a long life. Many of these older people delighted in being with their family members. Does a strong family unit breed longevity? Perhaps the best example of a U.S. subculture with a strong family unit is the Loma Linda community of Seventh Day Adventists. They shut down on Saturday and devote it to family and worship. Dental and medical students at Loma Linda University stop studying on that day to be with family. They have fun together. Granted, their vegetarian diet may also play a pivotal role in their longevity. Because of this togetherness, their strong social support resembles that of other worldwide pockets of centenarians.
Relationships are the spice of life – as a smile from your friends, spouse, children, or grandchildren will testify. And, just so that single people don’t feel left out, they, too, can become LifeNuts and have healthy lives as long as they have meaningful relationships. Unfortunately, in later years, single people often feel isolated, forgotten, and ignored. Such feelings lead to disease. So, if you’re single, join a group, exercise together, and treasure those who are close to you. LifeNuts, whether single or married, love their friends and family.