A new study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine suggests that happily married people may have lower average blood pressure than either unhappily married people or singles.

The new study, carried out by researchers from Brigham Young University, followed about 200 married people and 100 single people for a period of 24 hours. Each person was fitted with a device that recorded blood pressure at random points during 24 hour period. After the monitoring period, each person completed a survey about their overall level of happiness in their current relationship. When the data was analyzed, researchers found that those who reported being more happy in their relationships had lower blood pressure that those who were either unhappy or single.

While compelling, this research may simply reflect a known relationship - stress increases blood pressure. When considering that the study was conducted within a community that traditionally places great value on the ideas of marriage and family, being unmarried or unhappily married in the study community might create a more stressful situation than it would for people in other communities. So, it is difficult to generalize the findings to wider populations.

In fact, previous studies have shown that there do appear to be some health benefits to being in long term relationship. One study, for example, found that married people have a lower risk of heart disease than single people. In that study, though, it was the relationship itself that mattered, not whether the relationship was happy or unhappy.

Though interesting, more research will need to be done to see if this effect happens in other communities, and whether the decreases are large enough to be clinically significant.