A Happy Partner May Help You Manage Stress, Especially in Old Age: University of California Study
Having happy intimate partners might not only lift our moods, but it also helps us manage stress, especially as we age, according to new University of California, Davis, research.
When comparing individuals’ self-reported emotional states and relationship satisfaction with their levels of cortisol, researchers observed that older couples have lower levels of the stress hormone when their partners feel positive emotions. This effect was even stronger for people who reported higher satisfaction in their relationships. The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
“Having positive emotions with your relationship partner can act as like a social resource,” said Tomiko Yoneda, an assistant professor of psychology in the College of Letters and Science and the study’s lead author.
In old age, the links between our emotions and cortisol may be even stronger. Older adults also tend to have stronger physiological responses to stress, but their bodies are less able to slow down their cortisol production. For older couples, intimate relationships might play a role in managing their cortisol levels, researchers said.
Yoneda and her research team analyzed data from 321 adults from 56 to 87 years of age across three intensive studies in Canada and Germany between 2012 and 2018. The analysis compared people’s self-reported emotional states and their relationship satisfaction with levels of cortisol measured by saliva samples. In all three studies, people’s emotional states and cortisol were measured multiple times each day for a full week.
The study found that a person’s body produced less cortisol in moments when their partner reported higher positive emotions than usual. This effect was even stronger than when people reported their own positive emotions. It was also stronger among those who were older and people who reported being happier in their relationship.
Reference: Tomiko Yoneda, Theresa Pauly, Nilam Ram, Karolina Kolodziejczak-Krupp, Maureen C. Ashe, Kenneth Madden, Johanna Drewelies, Denis Gerstorf, Christiane A. Hoppmann, “What’s yours is mine”: Partners’ everyday emotional experiences and cortisol in older adult couples, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 167, 2024, 107118, ISSN 0306-4530,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2024.107118.
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