What a harmonious scene it would be if both husband and wife could happily do housework together when they return home after a hard day's work.

But did you know that only one party in the household actually benefits?

The University of Southern California drew relevant conclusions after conducting research and published the results in the Journal of Family Psychology.

The researchers followed 30 working-class couples living in Los Angeles for a week (median age was 41 years old and had at least one child aged 8 to 10 years old), and frequently recorded their cortisol levels and daily activity levels.

activity status.

We always have an adrenal hormone called cortisol coursing through our bodies, which causes our bodies to respond to stress.

Its levels peak during work hours and begin to decline at the end of the day when our activity decreases and we enter restorative sleep and relaxation.

If cortisol levels in our body remain at peak levels for a long period of time, or if cortisol levels do not drop during the night, we will feel tense and stressed and susceptible to disease.

Research also shows that people with higher levels of cortisol are even likely to live shorter lives.

The authors speculated that studying cortisol levels in married couples in the early evening should shed light on whether household chores affect our health and happiness.

The results show that doing housework for a long time after returning home will increase the amount of cortisol in both parties. This result is normal.

But further observation found that if the man could share some housework, the woman's cortisol levels would drop significantly.

Unfortunately, unless the man spends most of his time resting when he gets home and leaves a lot of housework to the woman, the man's cortisol levels will not drop to normal levels.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a psychologist at Ohio State University in the United States, said: "The phenomenon of the second shift (referring to working women who have to go home to do a lot of housework after work) still exists.

This is a heavy burden for women. Women often carry heavy burdens, which will have an impact on their health in the long run." Researchers recorded the couple's activities every ten minutes and found that after women returned home, 30

% of the time is spent on housework, 18.5% of the time is spent on talking, and only 10.6% of the time is spent on leisure and entertainment.

Men spend 20% of their time doing housework, 8.8% of their time talking, and 19% of their time in leisure activities.

The authors suggest that it may be helpful for husbands to spend more time in leisure than in housework.

However, this approach is not suitable for marital harmony and is not good for personal health.