Hello, and welcome to the Rev Up Health Podcast. Today it's February — heart health month — and we've been talking a lot about heart health in our patient education lately. With Valentine's Day coming up, today we're going to talk about relationships and their impact on your overall health and well-being.
It's interesting how the different types of relationships we'll talk about all come back to the same thing: they're all part of just being healthy overall. We hope we can shed a little light on that today.
Loneliness Is a Real Risk Factor
Doing the research for this really highlighted how important healthy relationships are. According to a report from the Heart Foundation, loneliness and social isolation are as damaging to your heart health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That's incredible — we had no idea it was like that. But they run the statistics on this and look at the overall risk factors, and loneliness and social isolation can raise your risk of heart disease and stroke by approximately 30%.
It affects our mood and mental health, too. Rates of depression and anxiety essentially double in divorced or separated partners, and there's about a 15% increase in depression and anxiety in adolescents who have poor parent-child relationships. You can see how the interactions between parents and children, between partners, and within our community all affect our overall health.
The Many Types of Relationships
There are so many types of relationships out there. We have relationships with our family and our friends. There are professional relationships at work — and for a lot of us, our waking hours are spent with the people we work with, so a good relationship at work makes a real difference. There's community, and of course romantic relationships with our partners. Even our pets count. And one thing that's important to bring up is the relationship with self.
That's the one that often gets overlooked. Your relationship with yourself is probably the most important, because if you don't have a good relationship with yourself, it's going to be hard to build relationships with other people. Especially around Valentine's, when so much is geared toward romantic relationships, the relationship with self is just as important. It's like a pyramid: if you don't have a good foundation, the other relationships you build may not be as stable or strong. So looking at yourself is a good place to start.
Every Relationship Takes Work
One thing we hear all the time is that relationships take work. Every type of relationship takes work, and they all have different seasons — some seasons are a lot easier than others. That's true even of the parent-child relationship, maybe even more so. We put a lot of emphasis on our work and home environments, but we need to put work into our relationships with ourselves and others, too. It's just as important.
Healthy social connections really help maintain emotional stability, overall mental clarity, and general physical wellness. As the statistics show, a lot of people don't realize how important strong relationships are to their general health.
I recently read Mel Robbins' book, *The Let Them Theory*, which is fantastic for a lot of reasons, but she has a section about friendships in adulthood. When you're a kid, you've got your classmates and you're surrounded by people. She cited a statistic that in order to build a good relationship with someone, you have to spend about 200 hours with them. That shows how important it is to put the time and effort into building friendships, especially as an adult, when it's so much harder to prioritize. And it's not just building relationships but maintaining them that matters for their strength.
Good relationships also start with reducing stress — we need to lower our stress to improve our mental clarity. Healthy relationships can even improve our immune system and overall longevity.
The Five Love Languages
We have five different love languages, from Gary Chapman's book *The Five Love Languages*. This is important in any relationship, because you have to know how the other person best receives love — what feels best to them. The five are acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, and physical touch.
It's ironic that we're talking about this today, because it came up completely off-topic this week during my surgical time at the surgery center — someone asked me what my love language was in the middle of the day. Totally random, and now here it is again. So I may have to look into it a little more. There's actually a test you can take. You might find that one or two apply to you — or, if you're a "janitor of love languages," maybe all of them apply. For the record, mine are physical touch and words of affirmation.
Professional and Community Relationships
We really need to work on our professional networks at work. It's something we don't always think about, but we spend a lot of time with the people we work alongside. We have common goals at work, and it's so nice to have relationships that make us more productive — so that when you go home at the end of the day, you're not just exhausted. It makes Monday a lot easier when you know you're going back to an enjoyable relationship. We can honestly say we have great work relationships with the people we work with.
That's an interesting thing to touch on, too — we actually met through a work relationship, on a medical mission trip to Uganda. That was an earlier podcast, a long time ago. So good, healthy relationships can sometimes blossom into other relationships.
Pets are another great relationship. It doesn't matter what kind of pet you have — a bird, a snake, a dog, a cat. They can be stressful sometimes, but they're also stress relievers. Petting and interacting with an animal is a good oxytocin release. We're strong believers in pets; all of our children have pets, and we think they're a good thing.
Engaging in community matters, too. Community relationships help fulfill your sense of purpose and belonging. Providing a service, or having that community support and knowing you're doing something that matters in other people's lives, helps quite a bit. As a plug — we're podcasting today from our new location at UDID Village. It's a great little community, with a coffee shop, spiritual elements, and a golf course. We're up on the fifth floor with a great view. We can't wait until spring, when everything will be blooming. The community where you work or live can make a big difference in your quality of life.
Simple Ways to Build Connection
So what can we do to build stronger connections? There are a few interesting things. One fun fact — which we've even posted about — comes from the Gottman Institute, which has great information about relationships in general. A six-second kiss or a 20-second hug releases oxytocin. We're not talking about a peck on the cheek or a quick "have a good day" — it's a full six seconds and 20 seconds. There are studies showing this triggers an oxytocin release, and oxytocin is the happy, feel-good hormone.
Then there's the 4-8-12 hug rule: we need four hugs a day to survive, eight hugs a day to maintain, and 12 hugs a day to grow — which is a lot. When we were talking about this, the question came up of whether we even get 12 hugs a day. Maybe we need to keep a tally. It's a simple thing to think about, and not just with your partner but with your kids, your pets, and your friends. Every hug you give is a step toward getting someone to their hug meter.
That relationship with our children is very important — as important as any other. You're teaching them the value of building a quality relationship and keeping that front and center, which helps their overall health.
Make Time and Communicate
Back to building strong relationships — one thing we do, and you can apply this to a romantic relationship, a friendship, or any relationship you want to grow, is plan consistent time together. We do date night pretty regularly, at least every other week, where we get dressed up and go do something fun. One year we tried a weekly "something new" date night, where we did something different each week. One person is the only one who knows the plan, and the other just shows up — "Here's what you're wearing, get in the car." It's exciting and fun, a nice little twist.
To have a good relationship, you have to start with one with yourself — you've got to have one to give one. Improving relationships has to be a priority. Good, quality communication helps, both with others and with yourself. Have your goals in mind, know what your goals in life are, and understand your partner's or significant other's goals, too. *The Let Them Theory* also has a lot of good information about how to communicate well and manage relationships in general. And of course, learn your love languages, especially with your significant other, so you know what they like and don't like.
How We Can Help
We've had patients ask a lot of questions about this, and there are things we can measure to help improve relationship quality. We can monitor your labs, look at ways to improve your sleep — better sleep helps a relationship — and even look at your vital signs, like heart rate and blood pressure, which can sometimes be indicators of where your relationships could be. Hormone optimization can improve the quality of our relationships, too, along with nutrition, activity, better sleep, and better communication.
And then there's counseling. Whether it's individual therapy, couples therapy, group therapy, or family therapy, it's helpful for learning to open up and break down communication barriers. I'm a big fan of therapy — I've been in therapy myself for many years and definitely advocate for it. It's not always easy to find a good therapist, and it's totally fine to try out different therapists or counselors. Sometimes you start with couples or family therapy and move into individual therapy. A good therapist can bring out things you might not say out loud, so your significant other can hear and understand them.
Wrapping Up
We hope everybody's gotten a little information today about how you can improve your relationships. As you can tell, there are multiple types of relationships and multiple ways of improving them. Hopefully you can take away one or two things and do something to improve your own relationships with your crew.
That's what we've got for relationships and how they affect your overall health. We'll talk to you again next time. Have a healthy day.