Here's a relationship tip backed by science: take a walk together. Young married couples who exercise together report communicating better and handling disagreements more peacefully than couples who don't, according to a new study from Brigham Young University published in the journal Family Relations and reported by Hooray News on October 19.
The study, led by Jeremy Yorgason, a professor in BYU's School of Family Life, with co-authors Ashlyn Hiatt Mildenhall and Matthew Núñez, analyzed survey data from 1,693 couples in the second round of BYU's CREATE study — short for Couple Relationships and Transition Experiences — a nationally representative project that has followed newly married couples across the U.S. for more than a decade. Spouses reported whether they exercised, whether they did it with each other, and what kind of exercise it was.
The most common shared workout was not anything fancy: it was walking. That matters, the researchers note, because the habit is cheap, simple, and available to almost anyone with a sidewalk. The team compared solo exercise and shared exercise against three outcomes — communication, conflict resolution, and marital conflict — and found that shared exercise was linked to small but consistent gains in how couples talk and argue. Communication was measured with questions about listening to a spouse, expressing yourself clearly, and understanding a partner's feelings.
The researchers are careful about what the findings are not: a cure for relationship problems. The effect is small but consistent, and the study shows association rather than proving that exercising together directly causes better communication. Still, for couples looking for one more reason to lace up their sneakers together, the message is encouraging — the healthiest love story may be the one where you both get to stick around to tell it, ideally side by side on the same sidewalk.
Photo: Luiza Serpa Lopes, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons