Being Single Can Age You? WTF?!

Putting a ring on it could lengthen your life, experts now say-but, SELF reports, it's not that simple. Here's why you shouldn't freak if you're running solo these days.

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As if your mom didn't bug you enough about settling down, now she's got science on her side: Marriage can bestow on you an extra three to six years on the planet. Among women who had celebrated 60 candles, the married lived longer than the never-married, an American Journal of Epidemiology research review finds. Lead author David Roelfs, Ph.D., explains that married gals may have more build-in day-to-day support, whereas "single women are more economically and medically marginalized and are therefore at a higher risk for health problems and early death." Huge bummer, that.

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On the single-is-cool side, though, is Howard Friedman, Ph.D., the author of The Longevity Project, which has followed the health, happiness and longevity of more than 1,500 people since 1921. "Women who stay single, get divorced or become widows often thrive," Friedman says. Why? Women are much mire likely than men to have the social networks-the close friends-that will help them when problems occur," he says.

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Single or spoken for, you can and should count on your close pals to help you through crises big (job loss) and small (oops, bounced check) and keep your body and brain ticking. In fact, those with good social relationships live about 50 percent longer than those who have poor connections, a study from Brigham Young University shows. Office buds count, too. People who receive social support from their peers at work could live longer than those who don't, a study in Health Psychology notes. One mega bonder: gossip. Experts at the University of California in Berkeley are learning that swapping secrets may be an evolutionary survival skill-it can help you deal with frustration, strengthen friendships and short-circuit stress. So go ahead, start spilling.


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