4 important benefits of keeping relationships

Relationships are important for various reasons from shaping our emotional wellbeing to helping our mental health which in turn affects our survival.

Relationship is the way two individuals behave towards each other or deal with one another. It can be a loving or sexual relationship between two people. It’s also the way two things are connected. It’s an emotional connection between two people. 

There are basically three types of relationship that helps to build our personal life- friendship, Romantic relationship and family.

Why do I need a relationship?

From birth to death, relationships are at the core of human experience. Humans are social animals with a powerful need to relate to other people. Belonging to a group enables people to survive physically and psychologically because no one is an island. It is not enough just to be near other people; we want to have close ties to people who care about us.

The key ingredients  of any successful relationship are trust, effective communication, empathy, quality time, respect, remembering little details and being actively involved and significantly in the person’s life.

Here are the reasons to be in a relationship

Firstly, I’ll talk about the unhealthy reasons which are: wanting someone to love you because you think you're love starved; you feel the need to be happy and to feel worthy and complete. These reasons will always get you disappointed because if you do not love yourself, your partner’s love cannot fill that space within that comes from self-abandonment.

The healthy reasons you need a relationship include:

·        To share love and care...love and value yourself so you become filled up with love to share. It is fulfilling to share your love.

·        To learn and grow... relationships offer a wonderful arena to heal old fears and insecurities that we have acquired in the past.

·        To be there to support each other...being social beings, we need others to love and care about us and to help us see what is true for us and what is best for us.

·        To share companionship and fun...we are not meant to live alone. It is generally more fun to do things with a partner than to be always doing them alone.

·        To create a safe and loving sexual relationship...people who love each other and are in a committed relationship (marriage) have the opportunity to be creative and sexually free with a loving partner.

Benefits of a healthy relationship

1. Less stress: being in a healthy relationship is linked to less stress hormone (cortisol) production. Having someone to talk to also helps reduce your psychological stress with the help of their social and emotional support.  

2. Better health: relationships contribute to health. Hanging out with healthy people increases our likelihood to be healthy. They encourage us to keep healthy habits thereby helping us to build an overall healthy lifestyle 

3. Greater sense of purpose: a loving partner will support you in becoming whatever you want to be.

4. Longer life: healthy social relationships bring benefit to physical and mental health. Our partners help us walk through anxiety or depression. People who have strong social relationships are more likely to live longer than those who isolate.