Help with housework key to good health for women, researchers say
Reported May 22, 2011
LOS ANGELES — At last, scientists have rigorously proven that men’s need to chill with the remote at day’s end is a simple matter of maintaining health and ensuring survival. They’ve also shown that women’s health — not to mention happiness — hinges on her male partner helping with the housework.
Researchers came to this conclusion by studying the daily activities of 30 dual-earner couples in Los Angeles for one week. They also tracked the couples’ levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which primes the body for physical and mental challenges during the day and recedes at day’s end in anticipation of rest.
People with chronically high cortisol levels — or whose levels fail to decline — not only feel stressed but are vulnerable to a wide range of illnesses. They even tend to die younger, studies show. So linking cortisol levels with married parents’ end-of-day activities should reveal a lot about how domestic routines influence health and happiness, the researchers surmised.
Credits: By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times , for details check out: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_18108861?source=rss&nclick_check=1
