Healthy Living by Kirstie_McIntosh

The flares are in the sky, back-up has been called; ladies and gentleman the mission to Save Our Singles is officially on.

It became clear to me that an operation of this kind had to be enforced last week, at precisely 1:02pm, as I was being dragged around a hideous wedding fair by a gaggle of old school friends. I was chatting away with my old pals, joining in on the wedding chat, and I found myself mindlessly agreeing that I wouldn’t have been able to face one of these if I was single.  Let me set things straight. I do not think this. Single life is fantastic.

As a singleton you get to waltz off to glitzy, impromptu parties without asking permission; you can spend all of your money on a delicious pair of Jimmy Choos and you can hook up with as many Prince Charmings as you feel fit – why limit yourself to just the one? Don’t get me wrong, I do love having a man to go home to and there are most certainly some perks to being in a relationship. But being single is not the worst thing that can happen either.

Yet even our supposedly single heroines seem to ditch the solo life when they get the chance; Bridget Jones, Carrie Bradshaw and even the hard-to-get Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) end up getting shacked up. 

So my SOS mission is officially launched and I’m beginning it by spreading the word that being single has some pretty good health benefits. For example, as a singleton you have:

More friends

When you get hitched your friends tend to get ditched. But friendship is a hugely undervalued resource. A 10 year Australian study found that older people with a large amount of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study than those older people with fewer friends.

Less fights

Fighting with your partner is no fun. But recent research has shown that there may be more sinister health risks associated with fighting with your loved one. One recent study concluded that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as smoking.

Healing powers

This doesn’t mean that because you’re single you have magic powers, but research does show a bad relationship lowers people’s immune systems.  The researchers blistered participants’ arms to measure how quickly these wounds healed. They found that the blisters on the couples who had a lot of marital stress took a full two days longer to heal than those of couples who were less hostile.

See, there are lots of benefits to being single. So, will you be joining me on my SOS mission? I’ve got a singleton whistle with your name on it!