Just a Valentine’s-themed post about a study that shows love is good for your telomeres:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23602876

In this case-control study, they found a trend towards longer telomeres in people who practiced loving kindness meditation.  They found that the “p-value” was 0.083 for an association between loving kindness meditation and longer telomeres; so in other words, there was only an 8% chance it was random.

But for women, there was only a 7 in 1,000 chance of this being random.

So for any men out there who may be wondering if it is worth it to go through the rigamarole of demonstrating your love on this ridiculous, commercialized holiday, there is now scientific evidence for the adage: “Happy wife, happy (and longer) life.”

Happy Valentine’s Day and the next time you think about skipping it, just consider the alternative…