Apparently the stress hormone is less in married and committed people.

According to new report from Physorg.com about a study from the University of Chicago, “unmarried people in a committed, romantic relationship show the same reduced responses to stress as do married people”.

The results of the study suggests “that single and unpaired individuals are more responsive to psychological stress than married individuals, a finding consistent with a growing body of evidence showing that marriage and social support can buffer against stress," Maestripieri writes in the article, "Between- and Within-sex Variations in Hormonal Responses to Psychological Stress in a Large Sample of College Students".”

The researches studied 500 masters' degree students at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business: “about 40 percent of the men and 53 percent of the women were married or in relationships. The group included 348 men with a mean age of 29 and 153 women with a mean age of 27”. The main result was that “unpaired individuals of both sexes had higher cortisol levels than married individuals”.

By Patricia Rivero.