single women live longer than married women?:
. according to Heather Havrilesky
married men live longer than single men;
but single women
live longer than married women.
[the week magazine 5.3; p36].
how can this be?
. perhaps the typical guy who doesn't marry
is a "weekend warrior" prone to
death by poor diet and sleep loss.
(shifting sleep to later on the weekends
is a form of sleep disruption;
as is binge drinking).
. but how are single women living longer
than married women?
. where is this statistic coming from?
psychology prof Howard S. Friedman[cbs]
co-author of The Longevity Project:
. the data he studied comes from
psychologist Lewis Terman.
looking for gifted children:
he asked teachers to pick out
the brightest kids in the class.
my ideas:
. this study selected only the brightest women;
so, it could be that it is only the
brightest women who don't adapt well to
submission to a man.
. perhaps if you selected only the women of
average intelligence and aptitude,
those women might live longer when married,
if having a career was more stressful
than enduring a submissive role.
. or regardless of intellect, perhaps
personality type determines longevity;
and the confident sort of personality
that is prone to remain single
is also more prone to live longer,
because that is what self-confidence does.
but what if marriage is unhealthy?
. single women may sleep better
because they are not bothered by snoring.
. I noticed that when I'm confined with others,
it's easier to stay relaxed around them
if I keep my mind sedated with plenty of food
and abstaining from heavy exercise;
that of course is a recipe for obesity
or other hormonal problems;
and is known to be unhealthy;
whereas singles have the opposite problem:
not only is there less need to
feel sedated at home,
but also singles may want to avoid obesity
in order to continue attracting dates,
or other away-from-home socials.
. if marriage causes isolation
then isolation might affect health.
. a review of studies found that
singles are more connected to friends,
neighbors, and blood relatives;
because marriage tends to
make people more insular.
[social psychologist Bella DePaulo].
. you don’t have to be alone to have
the perception of disconnectedness;
People with few social connections
or who feel lonely
have 29% higher risk of heart disease
and 32% higher risk of stroke.
[whereyoulivematters]
. if it is true that marriage causes
loss of connection with community,
is it true that the smartest men
were not insular after marriage
and that is why they fared well?
. is it often the case in a marriage,
that only the woman becomes isolated
for fear that the male becomes jealous?
JAMA internal med 2012:
Living Alone and Cardiovascular Risk
in Outpatients at Risk of or With
Atherothrombosis.
Social isolation, or an absence of
real or perceived social support,
may be associated with poor health.
[1-15]
There is substantial epidemiological evidence
that social isolation may alter
neurohormonal-mediated emotional stress,
influence health behavior,
and affect access to health care.
[1-3,8-10,15,24-29]
Prior [health] risk estimates
associated with social isolation
vary considerably owing to the difficulty in
reliably and precisely estimating
multidimensional psychosocial measures
among diverse settings.
. social integration was most highly
associated with mortality risk
when evaluated in a
multidimensional orthogonal manner
[how many relations?
spouse? friends?, family?]
and least likely when considered as a
binary metric,
such as living alone (yes/no).
. the Peter Principle refers to when
people are rewarded for doing a job well
by being promoted to a harder job;
but they are not demoted for doing poorly
so they tend to stay at the job they do poorly at.
also:
one tends to do not do well at a job
when there is no chance of competition.
. marriage is like the ultimate job.
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