I think this is absolutely wonderful this piece of research. Firstly, think about how the researchers actually ggot their data. Given that tehy needed to collect samples from these people while they were on a restful holiday far from the madding crowd, the researchers clearly needed to stay at the vacation resort, far from the madding crowd, so that they could do so.

Tough job, eh, but somebody’s got to do it.

Then there was their result:

ABSTRACT. The authors collected saliva samples from 15 married couples and 13 women staying with a female companion (N = 43) during an 8-day stay at a spa resort in Nagano, Japan. To examine changes in endocrinological stress markers, the authors evaluated participants’ levels of salivary cortisol and chromogranin A (CgA) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. By the eighth day, women staying with their husbands had significantly increased levels of cortisol and CgA. During the protocol, the authors observed no significant variation in levels of cortisol or CgA for either the women who were staying with same-sex companions or the male spouses. These findings suggest that the effects of long-term stays in a spa resort are more beneficial for married women staying with their husbands than for either married men or women staying with female companions.

So, going on vacation with your buddies doesn’t do anything and for men, going on vacation with their wives doesn’t do anything. But for wives, going on vacation with their husbands does benefit them.

That’s a weird weird result and I’m struggling to think what might be causing it. Maybe it’s that being relieved from the pressure of paid work doesn’t make much difference, but that being relieved from domestic work (and yes, Japan, where this was done, is a very rigidly divided society in terms of gender roles) does?

Anyone got any better theories?