It’s absolutely essential to have relationships in life. These include work-related as well as intimate bonds with people throughout your lives. We’re wired to bond with people ever since we’re babies. So, building good relationships works wonders for your mental health and well-being.
However, bad or toxic relationships cause massive breakage for people. Relationships can begin healthily, however, ill feelings, misunderstandings or long-term unfulfilled needs can grow and continue, spoiling the relationships and affecting the people involved in them.
Needless to mention, bad relationships are bad for your physical as well as mental health. Moreover, unhealthy relationships are extremely damaging to your self-esteem.
Bad Relation
Here are 10 ways of how bad relationships affect your health
Weight Gain
There are several reasons for bad relationships causing weight gain. One of them is the physiological effect of persistent stress on the systems related to our bodies. Also, being extremely unhappy in your most intimate relationship makes you look at life more negatively in general. Such a negative mindset leaves you feeling depressed and overwhelmed.
When you are stressed, your body tends to function less efficiently than at its maximum ability. To make things worse, you’d most likely turn to comfort food for seeking solace.
Bad Relationship Song
For instance, research on individuals who are unhappily married shows that they crave fatty comfort food to alleviate their stress. Such highly caloric foods give you momentary pleasure, however, over a long period, only put you at a higher risk of gaining weight. Furthermore, being dissatisfied in a relationship can result in passive-aggressive eating habits.
Increased Negative Stress
Chronic and continuing negative stress arises from conflicts in relationships ranging from parenting-related arguments to heated discussions over money to simple matters like who is responsible for which household chores.
The stress hormones affect the immune system adversely, thus leading to several severe physical and mental ailments, and also social disorders. In some cases, persistent stress causes existing health conditions to worsen. The bodily systems most vulnerable to negative stress are digestive, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal. Stress deteriorates various skin conditions like psoriasis, eczema, and acne, and also results in hair loss.
When stressed, you tend to adopt unhealthy coping habits like smoking and drinking too much to soothe your discomfort. This way you increase the risk of developing cancer.
Having a hard time managing your relationship can cause worrisome weight loss. In fact, drastic and sudden weight loss is an absolutely common indication of your bad relationship spoiling your life. When you’re experiencing emotional problems, you find it difficult to consume food. This way you’d certainly risk losing weight, sometimes even your skin color as you’re unable to look after yourself.
According to certain stress experts, acute stress can slow your body’s metabolism, hence you need less food. It’s also likely that your anxiety levels increase significantly, causing symptoms in the digestive system. The psychological and physical transformations that occur while struggling with an unhealthy relationship certainly change your normal eating routine. So, either you experience a reduced appetite or avoid eating altogether.
Sleep Problems
Bad relationships and poor sleep form a vicious cycle. If there are frequent conflicts in your relationships, you tend to suffer from poor sleep, and in turn, sleep disorders worsen the relationship problems.
Researchers at the Wesleyan University, Connecticut suggest that teenagers sleep well or poorly at night according to the company they keep throughout the day. Studies conducted among married couples show that being concerned regarding a spouse’s availability leads to sleep issues. Also, if the daily relationship experiences are more of a negative interaction with your partner, these certainly worsen your sleep problems.
Missing good sleep has numerous side effects including irritability, memory loss, reduced creativity, a weakened immune system, increased stress, and risk of diabetes Type 2 and of heart disease.
Anxiety
Relationship difficulties can literally lead to full-blown anxiety. A wide range of aspects of bad relationships causes anxiety, including abusive relationships and concerns raising children. Studies show that marital problems increase the risk of intense anxiety disorders like social anxiety.
Persistent negativity in relationships and being insecure about the future of your relationship are major causes of anxiety which manifests itself through physiological, emotional and cognitive symptoms.
Depression
A bad relationship is indeed a significant contributor to depression. In fact, studies show that people experiencing frequent and severe relationship conflicts or abusive relationships are very likely to have suicidal thoughts.
Some of the common symptoms of depression are lack of interest in your daily activities, feelings of helplessness, irritability, fatigue, having trouble concentrating and unexplained body aches.
Clinical depression, a serious depressive disorder, is most prevalent In women if they are on the verge of a divorce or if their husbands have been adulterous. Women get so drastically impacted by such incidents that their suffering from clinical depression is irrespective of their own and family background of depressive disorders.
Relationships lacking in intimacy and also full of conflicts drive people to drink heavily. Chronic drinking, in turn, worsens the situation.
Studies show that people who are struggling miserably with their relationships consider drinking alcohol as a way of avoiding or ignoring their problems.
So, instead of resolving conflicts in their relationships, such people prioritize alcohol over almost every aspect of their lives. This way the families of chronic drinkers experience financial problems because of the drinking habits. Also, chronic drinkers become socially unacceptable, which further lowers their self-confidence.
Your blood pressure levels are certainly linked to how strong and fulfilling your relationships are. A study conducted at Brigham Young University shows that people who are happily married tend to have normal blood pressure compared to their single counterparts.
However, people experiencing serious marital problems tend to suffer from higher blood pressure than singles. The reason is that while dealing with an unhealthy relationship your body releases stress hormones and your heart beats faster. These factors naturally heighten your blood pressure levels over time.
Furthermore, if you already are prone to having high blood pressure, relationship issues only worsen the condition. High blood pressure makes you vulnerable to heart disease and stroke which are the major causes of fatalities in the United States.
Adrenal Fatigue
Experts believe that adrenal fatigue strikes people who go through long periods of mental or physical stress in their relationships. Non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, sleep issues, body aches, digestive troubles, and nervousness all collectively indicate adrenal fatigue.
Living in a persistently hostile or quarrelsome environment forces cortisol levels in your body leading to adrenal fatigue. Your enraged mood is merely due to the hormonal imbalance occurring inside your body.
Heart Ache
Your past relationships, particularly those that came to an end leaving you hurt and rejected, most certainly cause heartache. An intense emotional pain that one experiences through deep longing, generally for a desired or lost love, heartache has almost identical effects on your brain as physical pain.
Researchers and experts from Columbia University suggest that a breakup can even result in a broken heart syndrome. This type of heart condition involves a temporary expansion of the heart due to intense physical or emotional distress. A broken heart syndrome often mimics a more severe condition like a heart attack.
Heartache needs substantial recovery time. Some of the worrisome effects heartaches has on your body are depression, sudden weight gain or loss, withdrawal and questioning one’s identity.
Conclusion
So, now you know how bad relationships affect your health in varying degrees. Life actually turns into a living hell, with heartbreaks, physical abuse, bitter feelings, and sleeplessness.
It’s imperative that we either work on resolving conflicts in our relationships or gracefully walk away from extremely damaged ones. Seeking outside help from assault lawyers like personal injury lawyers is a good option, particularly if you’re feeling harassed in a relationship.
Good health is key to having a good life, and healthy relationships are key to keeping good health.
Ultimately, relationships truly matter and nurturing them is the golden rule.
