How Much Stress Do You Have?

It's a well-established fact: how you get along with your mate can either keep you healthy or kill you, and I'm not suggesting that your mate kill you. It's how you get along with each other that can drive your blood pressure over the top, producing hypertension, and, yes, eventually a heart attack. A three-year study done by the University of Toronto Medical School tracked 103 couples, each one of whom had one party who had hypertension. And what did they find at the end of the study? They divided couples into the "happily married" group or the "not-so-happily-married" group who argued and fought a lot. At the end of the three-year study, those who were happily married were spending more time with each other and were healthier, while those who were not so blessed had seen their blood pressure go up by an average of six points and were spending less time together.