The Right Way to Wash Your Face After Working Out

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So, you made it out of your advanced spin class alive (this time). As you trudge your newly sore thighs to wash your face in the locker room all you can think about is a cold shower before putting on some quick makeup and heading to work. But while a quick rinse on your face feels cleansing to your skin, your pores aren’t getting really clean without a little more time and effort.

“While you should wash your skin after exercising, you have to remember to A) not use harsh cleansers or toners that will strip away your natural oils and B) replenish all of the moisture to re-balance your skin,” says Dennis Gross, founder of Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare and Dr. Dennis Gross Dermatology in New York City. “It’s best to avoid application of both moisturizer and makeup immediately upon washing after a workout. When you increase your metabolism through working out, the oil glands have a natural desire to secrete, so putting anything on right away may block the pores.” continues Dr. Gross. “To avoid this, wait for skin to cool to room temperature.” Most beauty products are generally designed to be used on cool skin anyway and when skin is overheated, it can turn temporarily red. Yep, that’s why that happens.

To avoid arriving at your post workout Sunday brunch with flushed and uneven skin tone, Dr. Gross recommends you wash your face with the All-in-One Cleanser from his line, or something similar that is hypoallergenic and has moisture-locking ingredients like Acai Fruit Extract. Does this mean that you’re going to have to be late to work or wake up early just to have time to use face wash after a gym class? Not exactly. It should only take between 5 to 10 minutes for your body to cool down enough to begin using those coveted products again.

Dr. Dennis Gross All-in-One Cleanser ($30, dgskincare.com)
Dove Beauty Bar ($4.93, amazon.com)
Dr. Brandt Pores no More Cleanser ($35, drbrandtskincare.com)
La Roche-Posay Thermal Spring Water ($11.69, drugstore.com)

Robert Anolik, a board certified dermatologist from the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York agrees with Gross, adding that when “certain hair bands that are non-absorbent press down on the upper forehead, you should wait for your body to cool down before washing with a Salicylic wash on the face and body.” He suggests the Pores No More Cleanser Nettoyant by Dr. Brandt, which is great for getting the dirt and debris that can get stuck deep in your pores.

Since you’ve already put your skin through changes in temperature and in contact with bacteria, using a face wash or soap with pH levels as close to neutral as possible, (like Dove’s White Beauty Bar) will prevent dry skin caused by loss of natural skin barriers. Even if you’re not leaving the studio drenched in as much sweat after a nighttime Pilates class as you would a three mile jog, you should avoid walking out the door without treating your skin directly. “Regardless of how much you sweat, spend a few minutes using a facial cleanser post work-out,” suggests Mona Gohara, dermatologist at Advanced DermCare and associate professor at the University of Yale’s Department of Dermatology. “If you are particularly flushed, use a thermal water infused with minerals to reduce inflammation and to calm the skin down. I really like La Roche-Posay’s Thermal Spring Water.”

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

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Add Germ Fighters to College Packing List

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Along with their bedding and laptops, college students living away from home need to pack protection against germs, an immunology expert advises.

“Because students share many of the same spaces and items in places such as residence halls and dining areas, many germs can spread quickly and easily,” Stacey Gorski, an assistant professor of biology at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, said in a university news release.

“The more you know about their risks, the better you can protect yourself,” she added.

Communal bathrooms in college residence halls are breeding grounds for fungi, bacteria and viruses, Gorski said. Students should wear shower sandals or flip-flops to protect them from viruses that can cause warts and fungi that lead to athlete’s foot, she said.

Viruses that cause gastrointestinal illnesses are common on college campuses. They can live for up to seven days on a surface, potentially infecting people during that time. Gorski said it’s a good idea for students to carry disinfectant wipes and use them daily on locations such as eating areas, desks, doorknobs and keyboards.

Soap and water is the best way to eliminate germs from your hands, but isn’t always available. Students can also carry alcohol-based hand gels to clean their hands, Gorski said.

Bedding shouldn’t be overlooked either, she added. Regularly washing bed linens is important, said Gorski.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about college health.

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Doctor’s Support Boosts Weight Loss, Study Shows

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Doctors play an important role in helping people lose weight, a new study finds.

Weight loss was double on average for obese patients who felt they had the most helpful doctors compared to those who felt their doctors were less helpful, researchers said.

The study involved 347 obese people who took part in a two-year U.S. government-funded clinical trial on weight loss. At the end of the trial, participants filled out surveys that included questions about their relationships with their primary care doctors.

Patients who gave their doctors the highest ratings on helpfulness during the trial lost an average of 11 pounds, compared to just over 5 pounds for patients who gave their doctors the lowest helpfulness ratings.

The study was published Aug. 21 in the journal Patient Education and Counseling.

The findings could lead to the development of weight-loss programs that give primary care doctors a major role, according to the Johns Hopkins University researchers.

“This trial supports other evidence that providers are very important in their patients’ weight-loss efforts,” Dr. Wendy Bennett, an assistant professor of medicine in the School of Medicine, said in a university news release.

She noted that many weight-loss programs are commercially run, and patients often join them without their doctor’s knowledge.

“Incorporating physicians into future programs might lead patients to more successful weight loss,” Bennett said.

She added it’s long been known that doctor-patient relationships that include empathy, good communication, collaboration and trust improve the chances that patients will take medicines as prescribed, keep medical appointments and have better outcomes.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases explains how to choose a safe and successful weight-loss program.

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Happiness Really Is Contagious, Study Finds

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Surrounding yourself with good moods and good friends may be great for your health, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Manchester in the U.K. looked at data from  2,000 teens in the United States based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Using methods similar to the types scientists use to track the spread of disease, they were able to see just how moods spread between the teens and their social networks.

The results showed that those who had more friends with healthy moods reduced the teen’s chance of developing depression, and increased the likelihood of the teen recovering from depression.

RELATED: 10 Signs You Should See a Doctor for Depression

“What we found is that if you have sufficient friends who are not depressed, in a healthy mood, then that can halve your probability of developing, or double your probability of recovering from, clinical depression in the six to twelve month period that the study ran over,” study co-author Thomas House, a senior lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester, told CBS News.

The researchers also learned that having friends who suffer from depression doesn’t effect the mental health of the friends surrounding them.

“There’s no negative effect to friendship,” House told the news outlet. “Your depressed friends don’t put you at more risk. In fact, you can help them recover.”

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 350 million people of all ages suffer from depression around the world.

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Shannon Doherty Reveals Breast Cancer Battle

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Shannon Doherty, 44, is battling breast cancer, the actress revealed Thursday.

The Beverly Hills, 90210 star was diagnosed in March 2015, when doctors found invasive breast cancer had already metastasized to one lymph node, if not more, People reports.

“Yes, I have breast cancer, and I am currently undergoing treatment,” the actress told the newsweekly.
“I am continuing to eat right, exercise and stay very positive about my life. I am thankful to my family, friends and doctors for their support and, of course, my fans who have stood by me.”

RELATED: 12 Things That Probably Don’t Increase Breast Cancer Risk

To make matters worse, she is also suing her management in Los Angeles Superior Court because, Doherty alleges, her business manager failed to submit insurance payments, causing a lapse in coverage that lead to a worse prognosis. The suit also claims that Doherty has accrued “significant” medical expenses, all while being unable to work since her diagnosis.

Representatives from financial management company Tanner Mainstain released a statement in response to the suit to People, which said, “Tanner Mainstain is saddened to learn that Ms. Doherty is suffering from cancer and wishes her a full recovery. However, the claim that Tanner Mainstain caused her to be uninsured, prevented her from seeking medical care, or somehow contributed to her cancer is patently false. Tanner Mainstain will aggressively defend all of Ms. Doherty’s claims in court.”

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Are You an Introvert — Or Are You Maybe an Undercover Narcissist?

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Something introverts really like to do, it seems, is read and talk about their own introversion. A commenter on a recent Science of Us post on the four kinds of introversion summed matters up quite nicely: “Gosh, introverts are just so FASCINATING! — Introverts.” This tendency, you could argue, may arise simply because introverts like spending a lot of time in deep reflection, getting lost in their own thoughts — and some of those thoughts, naturally, are going to be about themselves.

But at what point does self-reflection cross the line into self-preoccupation? As it turns out, there are some striking similarities between the popular understanding of introversion and a psychological characteristic called covert narcissism: It’s all the entitlement and grandiosity most people associate with narcissism, minus the bluster. Maybe you know someone like this: They tend to believe they’re being underestimated or overlooked, like their amazing qualities are forever going unnoticed by everyone else. They often take things too personally, especially criticism, and sometimes feel a little resentful when other people bother them with their problems.

Take a look at some of the items on a scale to measure covert narcissism, designed by psychologist Jonathan Cheek:

I easily become wrapped up in my own interests and forget the existence of others.
I feel that I am temperamentally different from most people.
When I enter a room, I often become self-conscious and feel that the eyes of others are upon me.
Of that last one, Cheek quipped to me: “Who are you, who everybody’s looking at you? That’s a narcissistic fantasy. It’s assuming that the world is paying a lot of attention to you.” (Scroll down to the bottom of this post, by the way, if you’d like to see how you rank on Cheek’s quiz.) Taken together, many of the items on Cheek’s scale sound an awful lot like the way most people understand introversion, and that’s no coincidence. Covert narcissism correlates strongly with introversion, Cheek explained — if you have one, you’re more likely to have the other, though there are plenty of introverts who don’t also have narcissistic tendencies. “Covert narcissism is sort of a dark side of introversion,” he said. “Just like overt narcissism is kind of a dark side of extroversion.” Put another way: Not all introverts are covert narcissists — but covert narcissists are almost certainly introverts.

Covert narcissism is called many names in the scientific literature: closet narcissism, hypersensitive narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism, to name a few. Here, I’ll mostly be using the term covert narcissism, and its opposite — overt narcissism, which is the usual way we think of narcissism: that is to say, as Trump-ish. But whatever you want to call it, it’s not by any means a new insight into human behavior, even though it’s still not very widely known outside of academia. As far back as the late 1930s, researchers published their observations of this quieter form of narcissism, according to the psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, who once wrote about the subject for Scientific American. The University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Paul Wink addressed the “two faces of narcissism” again in the early 1990s, and later that decade, Cheek published the first version of his scale.

But covert narcissism is understudied in comparison to its louder sibling, mostly because the trait is a tricky one to observe in human nature, let alone in a laboratory setting, explained W. Keith Campbell, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. “It’s not somebody with a big personality,” Campbell said. “It’s somebody who’s a little paranoid, who thinks they’re not being treated fairly. They’re a little suspicious, entitled.” (When he does presentations on the subject, the pop-culture figure who often pops up on his slides to illustrate the vulnerable narcissist is George Costanza.)

Because the trait is so closely associated with introversion, there are few outward signs of this version of narcissism — instead of bragging aloud, for example, covert narcissists mostly keep their sky-high opinions of themselves locked inside their own heads, leaving them feeling misunderstood and overlooked. Zooey Deschanel, for example may or may not be an introvert and she may or may not be a narcissist, but back in 2012 she gave an interview to Allure that includes a quote about her college experience, and it’s a pretty great articulation of this state of mind. “I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school. I was like, ‘It’d be cool to have a traditional college experience,'” she told the magazine. “Then I was like, ‘Oh, but none of these people understand what’s cool about me. My specialness is not appreciated in this place.'”

Some psychologists, however, argue that all narcissists are, in reality, quite vulnerable or even needy, despite their outward boastfulness. “There are covert narcissist aspects to any kind of narcissist,” said Craig Malkin, author of the new book Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad — and Surprising Good — About Feeling Special. “It’s just a mess with all these different terms. At the common core, these are people who are addicted to feeling special. It’s just that there are a lot of ways to do it.” Others say that covert narcissism might not really be narcissism at all, but instead a form of neuroticism. (And in either case, by the way, we’re talking here about trait narcissism, which is different from the personality disorder listed in the DSM-V. Many people’s personalities would rate somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum; it’s when the narcissism begins to intrude negatively into their lives, causing serious problems at work or home, that it starts to stray into disorder territory.)

Cheek, incidentally, recently completed some new research on the “common core” that unites both forms of the trait, which he presented earlier this year at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In a study of more than 600 people, he found that both introverted and extroverted narcissists have two things in common: A sense of entitlement and fantasies of their own grandiosity. “You have to have a pretty grand sense of yourself, but you also have to feel like you are entitled to have that recognized by other people,” Cheek said. “If you’re overt, you’re out there fighting for that recognition. But if you’re covert, you’re left in this kind of strange, introverted state, where you’re having these thoughts like, I wonder why people aren’t more appreciative of my good qualities. Nobody else seems to understand me.”

Overt narcissism carries with it some good qualities — these sorts of people, for example, tend to make excellent leaders. On the other hand, “I can’t see a lot of upsides to vulnerable narcissism,” Campbell said. If you’re seeing some of yourself in the definition of this kind of undercover egotism (and you would, you narcissist), there are some ways to tamp down the tendencies. “Practice caring and compassion for others,” Campbell said. “Do things you are passionate about rather than make you look good, and take responsibility for your actions. Basically, practices that minimize the ego and increase connection with the world.” Bonus: If you’re the type of introvert who is prone to social anxiety, turning your attention outside of yourself has been shown to reduce those jittery feelings. Life gets easier — for any personality type — when you remind yourself every once in a while that it’s not all about you.

You can take our quiz, adapted with permission from Cheek’s ten-item scale, to see whether or not you are a covert narcissist.

Take the Quiz

More from Science of Us:

So Apparently There Are 4 Kinds of Introversion 

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The Health Perks of Being a Narcissist

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Preteen Football Tied to Brain Changes in Retired NFL Players: Study

By Emily Willingham
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Playing tackle football before the age of 12 may be linked to brain changes seen in pro football players who developed memory and thinking problems later in life, new research suggests.

“It makes sense that children, whose brains are rapidly developing, should not be hitting their heads over and over again,” said lead author Julie Stamm, who conducted the study as part of her doctoral dissertation at Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.

“This study supports that idea and suggests that there may be later-life consequences associated with experiencing these repeated hits during childhood,” said Stamm, who is now a postdoctoral researcher in radiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

However, the current study could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between playing football at a young age and the brain changes seen later in life. It only showed an association between these factors.

One expert not involved with the research said it adds to growing evidence of potential risk for young players.

“This study is not strong enough to allow a parent to determine that the evidence supporting a ‘no football for my kid’ approach is wise,” said Dr. Marie Csete, president and chief scientist at Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena, Calif. “But taken together with other studies, that kind of decision is looking smarter and smarter.”

The study was published this month in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

In April, a federal district court judge approved a $765 million settlement between the National Football League and more than 5,000 players who had accused the league of hiding the dangers of concussions for years. But many former players are unhappy with terms of the agreement and have filed appeals.

In the study, Stamm and her colleagues evaluated 40 retired NFL players. Half of the players had started playing tackle football before turning 12 and the other half at age 12 or older. All participants had recently experienced at least six months of problems with memory and thinking. Both groups had similar rates of concussions, the researchers said.

The players who participated are part of the DETECT (Diagnosing and Evaluating Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy using Clinical Tests) study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. DETECT recruited retired NFL players who played professionally for at least two years. They were between 40 and 65 years old.

Using a special type of MRI, the investigators focused on connections in the corpus callosum, the area of the brain that bridges the two brain halves, the researchers explained.

These connections were less intact in the NFL players who began their tackle football careers before age 12, the researchers found. The implication is that repeated hits to the head during a critical period of brain development might lead to disruptions that permanently change the brain’s structure, Stamm said.

The corpus callosum goes through a period of fast development between the ages of 8 and 12, she explained.

Csete added that the corpus callosum shows “dramatic changes” during adolescence. “The work lends more evidence that delaying sports where repetitive head injury is common is probably a good idea,” she said.

Csete pointed out that the study is somewhat limited by the small number of NFL players involved. Another possible limitation is that interpretation of the specialized MRI used in the study has “not yet been perfected,” she said. In addition, she said that while the authors show evidence of structural changes, this study doesn’t link those changes to brain function.

The study is “still a cautionary tale,” Csete said, “Another one in the accumulating story about head injury in kids representing a serious problem.”

Csete also asked the question that’s likely uppermost in any parent’s mind: “What does the study mean for the much more common scenario of a kid that plays some football through high school and not beyond?”

Stamm noted that sports participation carries “so many important benefits for children, including the development of leadership skills, social skills and work ethic,” along with the health benefits.

That said, she added, “Research suggests that incurring repeated head impacts can lead to long-term consequences, and we should be doing what we can at all levels in all sports to minimize repeated hits.”

Csete agreed that avoiding repetition seems to be key. Repeated mild traumatic brain injuries in a short time frame can magnify their effects over the long term, she said.

“Until the rules of football and the culture around it change, kids will be at risk for brain injury,” she said. “‘Protective’ gear will not solve the problem alone.”

More information

To learn more about football injury prevention, visit the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

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Healthy Breakfast Is Essential for Kids

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Kids who skip breakfast will be nutritionally short-changed all day, an expert says.

“Growing bodies and developing brains need regular, healthy meals,” Carole Adler, a dietitian at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said in an agency news release.

The morning meal doesn’t have to include traditional breakfast foods. Give children foods they like, as long as you maintain a healthy balance, she said. For example, they might like leftovers from last night’s dinner or a turkey sandwich to start their day.

If your child loves sugary cereals, she suggested mixing a bit of that with a whole-grain, nutrient-rich healthier type of cereal.

“Nothing has to be off the table altogether, and sometimes just a taste of something your kids like is enough to keep them happy,” Adler said.

Try to provide a breakfast that includes protein, fat and carbohydrates to keep children feeling full and able to focus until lunch. Protein choices include an egg, some nuts, a slice of deli meat or cheese, or a container of yogurt.

Don’t let children skip breakfast, even if they have to eat it on the run, she added. For example, they can head out the door with a piece of fruit, a bag of nut-and-fruit trail mix, a whole wheat tortilla with peanut butter or almond butter, and a carton of milk.

“A fruit-filled shake with milk or yogurt takes only a couple of minutes to drink,” Adler said.

If you’re pressed for time in the morning, Adler recommended taking 10 minutes each night to prepare for breakfast the next day. You can chop up fruit to add to yogurt or cereal, cut up vegetables for an omelet, or mix muffin or whole-grain waffle batter and put it in the fridge.

Other preparations may include getting out a pan for pancakes or a blender for smoothies, and placing a bowl of nut-and-fruit trail mix on the table for your children to dip into before they walk out the door, Adler suggested.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about nutrition.

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Start of School Year Calls for Vaccine Check

By Emily Willingham
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — With the start of a new school year, many parents are searching for vaccination records and hoping they’re current, but what does “up-to-date” look like these days?

That depends on whether it’s what the school requires or what pediatric experts recommend.

“Not all vaccines that we recommend on the schedule are required by schools,” said Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “But schools help us keep up-to-date and have an annual assessment” of vaccine status.

Swanson explained that during childhood, three key school transitions coincide with vaccine schedules. The first, she said, is when a child enters kindergarten. Then, “typically, at sixth grade, we refresh again. And there are updates that we provide kids at the end of high school as get they ready to go to college,” she added.

Each of these turning points usually means exposure to a new population of students. For kindergartners, said Swanson, schools usually require being up-to-date on all doses of DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, or whooping cough), and on the varicella (chicken pox), polio and measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine series.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists five recommended shots in the DTaP series by age 4 to 6, four for polio by age 4 to 6, two for MMR by age 4 to 6, and one for chicken pox.

Requirements for kindergarten entry can vary by state. California, for example, currently requires all of these vaccinations at kindergarten entry plus a three-vaccination series for hepatitis B. Oregon, on the other hand, has the same requirements as California but also adds two vaccinations against hepatitis A.

Swanson recommends hepatitis A even if it isn’t required. She also recommends the influenza vaccine, which she considers “an essential vaccine for childhood because we know that young and school-aged kids are more likely to get the flu than the rest of us” because of the way they interact with each other in close quarters.

Middle school students might not behave like kindergartners, but their age is another critical turning point for vaccination. Students entering sixth grade, when they are usually 11 or 12, are typically required to have a Tdap, a booster intended to bump the waning immunity of earlier pertussis vaccines. Swanson also recommends the meningitis vaccine, even if schools don’t require it, because it covers four types of bacteria that cause the sometimes-fatal brain inflammation.

Another vaccine that’s not required at this age for school entry but that Swanson and other pediatricians recommend is the vaccine against HPV (human papillomavirus). This virus can cause cancers of the tissues it infects.

“It’s an anti-cancer vaccine,” Swanson said of the current three-shot series. “We can immunize kids in their teen years before they have any exposure to the virus so that they won’t have the risk of oral and pharyngeal (throat) cancers and cervical cancer.”

What might surprise some parents is that the approaching college years aren’t only a turning point for their child’s education, but also are another critical period for vaccination. Here, the vaccine against meningitis takes center stage in the form of a booster at age 16.

Swanson said that the reason for administering this dose after the middle-school dose is to enhance immunity just in time for the close-quarters of dorms, which can promote spread of the disease.

“We know you’re at higher risk for getting bacterial meningitis when you live in a dorm or in groups of people, particularly for those first years of college,” Swanson explained. In addition to the existing vaccines against meningitis, a new one has just become available that broadens protection even more, targeting a bacterial strain involved in 2014 outbreaks that ended with some deaths.

Colleges and universities vary on whether or not they require immunization against meningitis, in some cases depending on student age and residency on campus.

Some children can’t receive vaccines for medical reasons, such as a history of allergic reaction. Every state offers medical exemptions for these students, but the availability of other types of exemptions varies by state. West Virginia and Mississippi, for example, don’t allow exemptions for personal beliefs, and California will be joining them next year.

California state senator and pediatrician Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) said that he authored the law to guard against future outbreaks following a measles outbreak that began at two Disney parks in that state last December. Many other states do allow such exemptions.

“We’ve come through a funny time,” said Swanson. The tightening of exemptions in some states serves as “sticks rather than carrots trying to mandate the true benefit of vaccines, which is protecting the individual but secondarily protecting the population,” she explained. “That’s what’s different about vaccines. If you’re thinking about declining a vaccine, you’re not just affecting your child’s life, you’re affecting other students’ lives.”

Pan agreed. “All children have the right to attend school safe from the threat of contracting harmful and potentially deadly diseases that we can prevent with vaccines,” he said.

On that note, Swanson has one more recommendation about vaccines as the school year begins: Check your school’s percentage of vaccinated children. “You want to go to a school that’s well-immunized,” she said. “It’s a great part of making sure your child is safe whenever you send them back to school because we want to drop our children off at a school that’s really well protected.”

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on childhood vaccinations.

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Single and Happy? Your View on Relationships May Be Key

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Aug. 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Single people can be just as happy as those in romantic relationships — but it may depend on their temperament, a new study suggests.

Over the years, research has found that single people tend to be less satisfied with their lives, compared to those with a significant other. But that reflects only the average experience; and some studies have found that the single life can bring some advantages — like closer relationships with friends and family.

The new study adds another layer: Single people can, in fact, be just as fulfilled as couples — but it may partly depend on how they approach relationships in general.

The key, researchers found, is whether a person prefers to avoid conflict and drama in relationships. In that case, the single life appears just as satisfying as being coupled, on average.

In contrast, people who are unfazed by relationship ups and downs tend to be less happy when they’re single, according to the findings, published online Aug. 21 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

It all suggests that for some people, being romantically unattached removes a major source of stress, according to Yuthika Girme and her colleagues at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand.

“I think this study underscores the point that you can never say one-size-fits-all,” said James Maddux, a senior scholar at the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

“There are many paths to happiness,” said Maddux, who was not involved in the study.

At the same time, though, people who constantly strive to avoid conflict in relationships may tend to be on the neurotic side, said Maddux. And some of them might benefit from changing their perspective.

That’s often one of the goals in couples’ counseling, he explained. People learn to better manage the downsides of their relationship and focus more on the positive aspects.

So people who hate conflict should not discount a potentially promising romantic relationship, according to Maddux. “You can change,” he said. “You’re not stuck.”

The current findings are based on more than 4,000 New Zealand adults who were surveyed twice, one year apart. One-fifth were single at both time points, and the rest were married, living with someone, or dating.

Overall, the results mirrored what other studies have shown: People in relationships were happier, on average, than singles. But the picture grew more complicated when the researchers dug deeper.

Single people who valued drama-free relationships were just as happy as people with a significant other. On the other hand, singles who highly valued intimacy — even if it meant conflict — were less happy.

The question of whether singles are happy is becoming increasingly important, Girme’s team said. As more and more people postpone marriage, or divorce, single adults make up a growing share of the population in Western countries.

In the United States alone, around half of adults are unmarried, according to recent surveys.

But studies can only “paint broad strokes,” Maddux pointed out.

“Life satisfaction is a very complicated issue,” he said. “And the more we study it, the more nuances we see.”

Importantly, Maddux said, romance — or the lack of it — is just one factor in overall contentment. Research suggests that genetics accounts for a lot: That is, we are born with certain personality traits, and people who are naturally anxious or pessimistic, for example, are less inclined to feel like life is good.

However, Maddux said, “the things we can control” do make a big difference in life satisfaction. And the goals we pursue — whether in relationships, career or lifestyle — all matter.

“Your status as single or paired actually contributes only a small part to the overall picture,” Maddux said.

Patrick Markey is an associate professor of psychology at Villanova University in Villanova, Pa., who studies relationship issues.

He said there is strong evidence that people typically benefit from romantic relationships. “That’s especially true for men,” Markey said. “We’re healthier and live longer if we’re married.”

He agreed, however, that not everyone is better off being part of a couple and that happiness hinges on more than romance. “Actually, genes are probably most important,” Markey said. “People who are pretty satisfied at a young age are usually pretty satisfied later in life, too.”

Relationships and experiences change how we feel temporarily, he said, but we generally return to our baseline. “A miserable, grumpy person probably isn’t going to suddenly change because they’re dating someone,” Markey explained.

More information

The American Psychological Association has advice on keeping relationships healthy.

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