Book review: Mind/Body Health, Part 3
I continue to read through Mind/Body Health, fourth edition. This review is pages 203-305, which covers chapters 8 (Disease-Resistant Personality), 9 (Social Support, Relationships, and Health), 10 (Loneliness and Health), and 11 (Marriage and Health).
I was particularly sensitive about that last one, given that I’ve harbored some ideas that marriage might be fundamentally fucked up (the divorce process certainly is!) Sure, a lot of people are happy being monogamously married, but a lot of people are happy no matter what. Is it ever a smart idea to link your happiness to the cooperation of another? Can a person really find themselves when their entire life is colored by the presence of another? I found such liberation in divorce that I wondered if everyone would be better off divorced. Married people take a lot of things for granted that perhaps they shouldn’t take for granted.
What does the book say? It says that hands-down, marriage as we practice it is healthier for you than being divorced or single. A married man will live an average of almost a decade longer than one who is single. It gets a little fuzzy when they try to break down happy marriages from unhappy ones. One finding I was unsurprised by is that an unhappily married woman is in a lot worse health risk than an unhappily married man, and that an unhappy marriage is worse than being single or divorced (especially for the woman). If my own marriage was any indication, an unhappily married man has to deal with his wife disagreeing with and in some cases attempting to obstruct his wishes, but an unhappily married woman has to do things her husband’s way while her objections and wishes are ignored. I think the latter is quite a bit more stressful and disempowering than the former. It’s not like one person gets their way sometimes and the other sometimes - one person loses consistently and all the winner has to deal with is the complaints of the one they are oppressing.
From my other readings, a key feature of an abusive marriage is the tight control by the man of the woman’s social group and interactions with her family. Given the other chapters in Mind/Body Health about social support and loneliness (where they also address toxic relationships), it’s no wonder the woman’s health suffers badly under these conditions. It’s something most people know - loneliness hurts and friendship heals. The authors don’t get into the fine points of acceptance and validation, as most of the studies only cover things like the number of social ties, roles, and/or contacts. It’s easy to summarize because the data all point to the same thing - people with lots of friends are healthier; people without them are not.
There’s a thread that runs through all of these chapters that I can’t help tugging at. That’s correlation vs causation. The authors continue to do their best to make it clear this is all correlation. It may be that identifying people with a lot of friends might be no different than identifying people who are healthy. They even mention that sick people might have fewer friends because being sick is not cool, plus it limits a person’s opportunities to get out, meet people, and cultivate friendships. Similarly, lonely people might be lonely due to health and mental issues that drive others away. There is evidence the tendency to be lonely is genetic, rooted in inflammatory response and difficulty in responding warmly to other people.
On the causative front, there were some wonderful studies of people who had immigrated or relocated and suffered health decreases as a result (which in some cases were temporary as they rebuilt social ties in the new place). They also had studies of people in nursing homes whose immune function improved markedly after starting a program where they received visits from volunteers. It made it look like losing friends leads to unhealthiness, while making them increases health.
It’s not that every social interaction is positive, though. Just like the difference between a happy and unhappy marriage, the authors point out that some relationships are destructive and unfulfilling. Once you identify one of these, you’re best off getting away from it as soon as possible and freeing your time and resources for encountering someone better. A bad 'friend' is worse than no friend at all.
It’s a good book. I continue to heartily recommend it.