How Relationships Can Impact Your Well-Being

The quality and variety of relationships in your life can play a role in strengthening your immunity, speeding up recovery from illnesses

- Hariprasad Varma

Are healthy, meaningful, nourishing relationships key to achieving holistic health and well-being? The latest research findings seem to be make a connection between the quality of relationships and their impact on the health and well-being of an individual.

“I have observed that for people with pre-existing conditions, those with a strong support system in the form of a significant other, spouse, family or close friends experience less pain and less disability, and show better coping and a more positive expectation of life than those managing alone,” says Sujata Ameya, clinical psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health And Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. Ameya has spent the past 32 years working as a couples’ therapist.

“If a person is suffering from a critical condition like cancer, and they have a solid emotional connection in any relationship in their life, the way they relate to the illness, the way they manage and go through it is significantly different than those who don’t have good relationships,” Ameya adds.

This view finds resonance with Shakuntala Devulapally, a cancer survivor and a practising yoga therapist and cancer coach based in Hyderabad. Reflecting on her own personal experience and practice, she says, “When I work with someone who is undergoing cancer treatment, or has just recovered and is getting back to a normal life, I find that their relationship with their family members is crucial for their healing. Keeping this in mind, my interventions include not just the patient, but also the family and primary caregivers.”