What a Chore: Housework Is Bad for Both Sexes

What a Chore: Housework Is Bad for Both Sexes

Lazy slobs have a reason to rejoice: A new study suggests cleaning up when you get home prevents the body from reducing its levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is a bad thing when you're supposed to be unwinding.

The study, which is published in the "Journal of Family Psychiatry," followed 30 Los Angeles couples and discovered that when men pitched in with the housework, women's cortisol levels went down — perhaps because she no longer had before her the specter of doing it all alone.

However, men's cortisol levels dropped only when he was not doing housework and his partner was — perhaps because he knew that not only was the housework was getting done, but also that he didn't have to do it.

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