Marital stress: bad for a woman\'s heart

by Mary Calvagna

Men and women are not the same; and this notion carries through to health issues. For example, when a woman under the age of 70 has a heart attack, she has a far worse prognosis than a man of the same age. The reason for this disparity, however, is not yet understood.

A commonly held belief is that a man's stress is experienced at work and a woman's stress is experienced at home. Previous studies of men have found that work stress is associated with an increase in heart disease and poorer health outcomes after a heart attack. Speculation into the role of stress in the home led researchers to focus on marital stress as well as work stress when they studied women and heart attacks. Their results were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association*.

Work stress vs. marital stress

Researchers studied 279 females who were hospitalized after experiencing a heart attack. For five years after the initial attack, records were kept on any recurrences of coronary events, such as another heart attack, a revascularization procedure, or death from heart disease. In addition, researchers assessed marriage and work stress levels in the women using specialized questionnaires and structured interviews.

The results were quite significant. Severe marital stress was highly correlated with risk of a recurrent cardiac event; these women had a threefold higher risk than women with mild or no marital stress. Work stress, however, did not increase a woman's risk for a recurrent event.

The authors of the study speculated on possible explanations for these findings. Due to emotional strain and a perceived lack of support from her partner, a woman may not be motivated to stick with healthful lifestyle behaviors, or may not seek out medical support. Another factor may be the potentially damaging effects of negative emotional states and stress on the way the body functions physiologically.

Communicate your way to less stress

Whatever the mechanism, it seems clear that marital stress is bad for a woman's heart, both emotionally and physically. Working to alleviate stress in a marriage is a good step toward health and happiness. Many experts believe that communication is the foundation for a good marriage.

The Families Worldwide Organization provides some ideas about what you can do to help build effective communication. Some of the tips include:

• Listen as well as talk; Communication is a two-way street.
• Work on hearing what your spouse is communicating. You may not be receiving the message that your partner is trying to convey.
• Restate what you think your partner has said to ensure that what you think you heard was what was intended. This will help with your understanding.
• Be sensitive to the nonverbal messages as well as the ones expressed in words. Although they can be confusing, they can also send important messages.
• Take time out to talk. Put the kids to bed, turn off the television, unplug the phone. Make it a priority.
• Just be there. Sometimes it is comfort enough to have someone to lean on or someone to listen.