If we were to boil down the two things that would be most beneficial to your mental and physical health and quality of life we would be looking at exercise and healthy relationships. Exercise tends to be discussed quite often on social media, and you need to aim to build muscle strength and cardiovascular endurance to optimize the benefits of exercise. Relationships tend to not be as clear cut in terms of available information. Let’s explore what a beneficial relationship brings versus what a taxing relationship takes.
First we have to define what a beneficial relationship does for you. There are many social facets that we can talk about that people use to define beneficial relationships, and what is beneficial to each person and culture tends to differ. So how do we break this down in a way that can be more universal and account for the variety of human experience out there? We can take a look at our neurology.
Our brains are prediction machines that are constantly trying to predict how much we need to do in order to achieve our goals or do a task. So our brains use resources to predict how many resources we need to spend on something. There is something magical that happens when we find ourselves in a beneficial and healthy relationship. Our brains end up using less energy to figure out how many resources we need to spend and at the same time we spend less resources to accomplish the same thing. One way to paraphrase this is that beneficial relationships help regulate each other’s stress systems.
The effect of a beneficial romantic relationship is rather large. We see that people in taxing romantic relationships tend to live just about ~6 years less, while people in beneficial romantic relationships tend to live just about ~6 years more. A net gain of ~12 years! That’s genuinely wild. The only thing that comes close to extending lifespan that much is exercise.
Now that we have an idea of what a truly beneficial relationship looks like, we can start thinking about what that looks like for you. This discussion does not have to be centered around romantic relationships, any and all relationships fit the bill here. The thing we are looking for are people who are predictable and consistent who bring more stress relief than they bring stress. This applies to us as well. It’s ideal for us to think about how we impact those around us for our optimal healthy relationships. This is a very delicate conversation because what one person thinks is stressful is not the same as what another finds stressful. This is why we want to find a degree of compatibility on values and daily behaviors. One person might find a 2 mile run very stressful, and the other might find missing their 2 mile run equally stressful. One behavior/belief won’t make or break a relationship, and no relationship will be perfectly aligned. We want to look for people who have enough overlap that simply brings us a net gain in reductions of our internal resource management. This means that even if you are very behaviorally different, and provide each other with a lot of emotional support, then it could be a great and healthy relationship.
This is where we can break up healthy relationships into things that we can do to keep things healthy and things we can look for to ensure we have healthy relationships. For the former, we can make sure we ask or do our best to understand other’s goals and values. We can then choose to direct our behavior in alignment with said goals and values to offer support to others. This does not have to mean we carry the brunt of the work, we can just assist people slightly and validate them along the way. Something as simple as letting someone spend time with a close friend or giving them a snack when they head off somewhere can be an immense gesture. If we are able to uphold other’s values, no matter how nonsensical they may be, they will feel more loved and require less resources to move towards their goals.
On the other hand, we want to make sure we find others who do the same for us. We want to make sure we screen friends with how their actions help us move towards our goals. And certain metrics, such as looks and status, may not be as important as what really helps you feel accepted and move towards your goals. Unless, of course, looks and status are your goals, then it can work! Be sure that you don’t sacrifice a large portion of your personal values for another. It is always a balancing act that must have both parties involved. If one is too heavily taxed, it will not lead to a beneficial relationship.
