Here's one more reason to make sure you and your hubby share a bed tonight. According to several studies reviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Andrea Petersen, sleeping in the same bed as your partner may be one reason couples usually live longer and healthier lives.

In one study, Petersen found that women in stable relationships tend to sleep better at night compared to women whose status changed over the course of the study. In another study, it was revealed that women slept better at night when they had fewer negative interactions with their husbands during the day. Consequently, the husbands appeared to sleep better when their wives did. For some couples, sharing a bed may also lead to the increase in the generation of oxytocin, the "love" hormone, and a decrease in the generation of "stress" hormone cortisol.

At this point, there is not enough data to truly confirm the findings, but there is a hypothesis that suggests that shared sleep promotes feelings of safety and security. Now, if you can just figure out how to deal with a partner who snores too loudly, you’ll be able to reap the benefits of shared sleep too.

(Photo by scion_cho via Flickr Creative Commons)