One of the most usual things we do as we grow is establish a relationship with other people. That is already given, to have a happy relationship to help you get through your bad days. But aside from being a support, relationships also contribute to your aging process — whether you will grow healthily or not.
A rewarding and happy relationship does not only grow inside your house, but you can also build a strong one with your friends, colleagues, and your loved ones even when they are miles away. Just like how the saying “no man is an island” goes, you, as an individual, need other people who can support you and bring out the best in you.
As we grow older, we realize that life is not just about collecting the things we want, but it is also about the intangible things that we gain whenever we let other people know us and be with us as we explore the most profound mysteries we can face in this lifetime. Be it your family, your friends, or your loved one, each one of them plays a vital role in providing you with happy and healthy aging. Life is not just about living and surviving alone.
Just like what Louis Cozolino, a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, said in “Timeless: Nature’s Formula for Health and Longevity” that, “Of all the experiences we need to survive and thrive, it is the experience of relating to others that is the most meaningful and important.”
Before you continue to scan this article, we advise you to read our article “Stressful life? Why It Is Important To Take A Break” to know more about the negative impacts you can encounter and the ways you can do to deal with them to be contented in life.
How Relationships Contribute EMOTIONALLY
– Know your partner
– Choose The People Who Can Benefit You
– You Are Imperfect, Others, Too
- How Relationships Contribute MENTALLY
- How Relationships Contribute PHYSICALLY
How Relationships Contribute EMOTIONALLY
Out of all the things your relationship can contribute, emotional aspects remain the number one whether you are in a happy relationship or not.
As we age, a part of the aging process involves being more selective in who we share our lives with as well as strengthening our ties with them. By doing so, we can get rid of the unnecessary connections that are not making us feel satisfied in life and allow us to focus more on high-quality relationships with other people who deserve us. When we enter or establish, a relationship, you can expect that it has a significant impact on our values and culture with whomever we are investing our time with. If we become part of a happy relationship, we can quickly strengthen our emotional status while having contact with other people.
Whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, everything you do in that specific relationship can affect you emotionally in so many ways. For instance, a happy relationship is not always happy at all. There will always be ups and downs, and it is up to you in what way you want to handle them. But you should never forget that whatever struggle you might encounter, everything should make you stronger in the end.
To be specific, here are some of the ways you can do to make a happy relationship bring impact a healthy aging process:
Know your partner
Aside from your family, you are also establishing relationships with someone special, your friends, and colleagues. You need to know them more so you can learn how to love and cherish them better. When you do, they will be doing the same, and you will all benefit from that happy relationship. Knowing each other is one of the keys to a happy relationship. If you fail to do so, it will show that you are not happy with the relationship as everything will be lifeless, cold, and without much value to either of you.
Choose The People Who Can Benefit You
Out of billions of people around the world, there are only a few of them who can benefit you, and you should attract those people who are contented in life so you can be contented, too. Harvard University once had a 20-year study that involved over 4,739 individuals, and they found out that there is a division between happy and happy people. They added if you have a friend who lives near you, you will be more likely to have a 25% happy relationship with them. As with the other effects of social networks, these findings were consistent over time and effective to up to three degrees of separation. So, your friend and your friend’s friend and your friend’s friend’s friend could influence your happiness.
You Are Imperfect So Others, Too
There are people whom you share a happy relationship with. Though they are showing a happy face, they might have been facing struggles in a different connection with other people, too. Opening your door to them is like giving them a chance to open up to you so you can understand them. Like you, they are facing some difficulties in life, and you should be grateful to be one of the people who they can rely on. Once you have accepted that they are not perfect, too, that is when the aging process with them gets healthy.
How Relationships Contribute MENTALLY
Part of the aging process is to do everything to be contented in life if you are not happy with the relationship you have right now since, throughout your life, your relationships will affect your overall mental health.
There are a lot of benefits that your happy relationship will bring to your mental health. A lot of people who once dealt with anxiety, depression, and other mental health problem eventually became happy and lively again due to their current relationships. This is because a strong, happy relationship becomes a stepping stone for them to have higher self-esteem compared to the feelings they had before they established one. It can also help you strengthen your immune system and help you recover from any disease. Thus, it ends up improving your aging process and may even lengthen your life. However, in contrast, if you are not happy with your relationship, you are more likely to have dramatic consequences involving your health. This is because negative feelings can cause unstable sleeping patterns, high blood pressure, and a feeling like you are not contented in life anymore.
For you who want to grow older healthily, you are likely to feel the following once you have a happy relationship:
- a better quality of life
- you will feel more satisfied and contented in life
- you will have a lower risk of dementia and other mental-related diseases
- you will not rely on domestic support.
If you are still young and wild, there is a high percentage that you will feel more isolated since you are still growing up, and you need more time with yourself. But not having a happy relationship at all can have a direct impact that you may carry for the rest of your adulthood, and it is not as healthy as you think if you aim to improve your aging process. This may also lead to long-term health problems like heart disease or mental health problems.
However, there are ways you can do can improve your connections.
Express your interest in them – one way to keep one person interested in you is to show that you are interested in them, too. Acknowledging the best in them is one way to let them know that you are thinking about them. Simply saying something nice about their outfit, or complimenting their food can ultimately make them feel loved and important.
Avoid rumors and gossip – This is the number one relationship wrecker of all time. Starting rumors does not only damage the person, but it can also become the cause of why they do not trust you anymore. Avoiding rumors and gossip does not only save your relationship, but it can also save your whole being since it eliminates toxicity from your system and prevents it from even approaching your life.
Do not criticize others – Just like how you should avoid rumors, you should also prevent yourself from finding faults in them. Like you, they are not perfect, but those imperfections will make your relationship work even better. We are sure that you, yourself, do not also want to hear negative comments when you know that you already did your best. Uttering kind words is natural and you can do it every day instead of letting out statements that will hurt other people. The world already has enough of ungrateful people, and we should not be addends to that.
Acknowledge their wins – Appreciating their efforts is one way to keep your happy relationship long-lasting. Let them know that through ups and downs, you are with them because they also stay by your side when you had nothing and now that you have got everything.
Admit when you are wrong – As we have mentioned, the key to making your relationship last longer is to know when to say you are sorry. The mistakes you do can build your connection with them if you look at them positively and turn them into life lessons.
How Relationships Contribute PHYSICALLY
When it comes to the physical benefits of having a happy relationship, your health is always the number one that is on the line. It is the same as when you are not happy with your relationship with anyone.
If you do your best to shoo away toxicity away from your happy relationship, there is a huge tendency that you are saving yourself from the lousy aging process, too. It is because whenever you choose to stay in a toxic connection, you are also allowing negative impact to come to you and bring negative things to your health. Sometimes, it makes you feel insecure and inadequate about yourself. For example, when your weight becomes the main issue, it is either you eat more or not so that you can look perfect in their eyes. Putting pressure on yourself while feeling drained and unhappy are some signs that you are not happy with your relationship with that particular person. Not only it has mental health implications, but it can also attack you physically.
One study found if you are not happy with a relationship, you are at high risk of developing heart problems than those who are in a happy relationship. In another study, researchers found out that women, who have a poor aging process, tend to have high blood sugar levels and high blood pressure. They are also possible to be obese in no time. Of course, this also stemmed from the stress that these relationships have been causing you.
There may be other physical repercussions, too, but your immune system is the primary victim if you let this poor aging process conquer your life and supposed happy relationship.
Psychologist Maryann Troiani, the co-author of Spontaneous Optimism, once said, “A happy couple can motivate each other to stay healthy—they’ll go to the gym together, set goals, and feel responsible for each other. Dissatisfaction in the relationship can lead to passive-aggressive eating behaviors and sleep problems, which will lead to weight gain.”
Once you become a part of a happy relationship, you will feel more contented in life as you will do better not only for yourself but for other people, too. While you improve your happy relationship with other people, you start improving the quality of it, too, making you finally contented with life. But you always bear in mind that in order to achieve that, you should always think about your partners, too. After all, relationships are not just about one person, but it is about establishing your connection with other people and doing your best to make everything worthwhile.
0 Comments