12 Reasons Married Couples Should Sleep in Separate Beds

Sleeping together may ignite the wrong flame

Fighting with your spouse can cause you both to lose sleep, but losing sleep can also cause you to fight with your spouse. This chicken-egg conundrum has serious health implications for couples, especially if sleepless nights are more than a rare occurrence.

In a new study at The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, researchers acquired blood samples from 43 couples, both before, and after, they had a fight, on two separate occasions. The couples supplied information about topics known to generate spats in their household, as well as their recent sleep history. Researchers instructed each couple to discuss the contentious topic, and to then supply a blood sample. Findings indicated that couples who fought after not getting enough sleep had measurably higher levels of stress-related inflammation. (Check out these six ways to relieve that inflammation.) This type of physiological response puts both partners at a heightened risk for many diseases, and it’s a long list, which includes diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and arthritis.

While losing one night’s sleep is no big deal, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD, senior author and director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, emphasizes that sleep loss becomes dangerous over extended periods of time. “If couples don’t find ways to effectively address their differences, having continuously elevated levels of inflammation could put them at higher risk for health problems,” she says. While the study didn’t address the value of sleeping apart, it could allow couples to simmer down, according to this advice from marriage counselors. This will allow cooler heads to prevail come morning, they say. That’s especially true if you happen to be fighting about how the other person is keeping your from sleeping soundly.

from Reader's Digest http://ift.tt/2uOEhjN