According to new research publicised recently, a healthy social life may be as good for your long-term health as not smoking.

Social Connections Research

Research was carried out at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina, where data was compared from 148 studies on health outcomes and social relationships from more than 300,000 men and women throughout the developed world.

They found that those with poor social connections had on average fifty per cent higher odds of death in the study’s follow-up period (an average of 7.5 years) than people with much stronger social ties. It’s also a bigger factor than differences in the risk of death associated with many other well-known lifestyle factors, including lack of exercise and obesity.

In one of the most famous experiments on health and social life, Carnegie Mellon University exposed hundreds of healthy volunteers to the common cold virus, then isolated them for several days. The study showed that participants with more social connections and with a wider social network (friends from a variety of social contexts such as work, sports teams and church) were less likely to develop a cold than the more socially isolated study participants.

In essence, the immune systems of people with lots of friends simply worked better, fighting off the cold virus, often without symptoms. Studies suggest that a strong social life affects immune function by helping people keep physiological stress under control.

We are responsible for ourselves

As individuals, we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. There are so many other things we must take into consideration too. We must concentrate on our emotional, physical and spiritual health, because without those we will always struggle with our health. It is important to have friends and family around us who can and do help us, but we ultimately have to be able to help ourselves.

Spirituality and emotions set the tone for how we live our lives

How we are spiritually and emotionally will set the tone for how we live our lives and how successful we will be. They are key, the glue if you like. If we are happy within ourselves, we’re more likely to have control of the things that go on around us that means we’re also more likely to get a better grip on stress and anxiety.

As time moves on, our lives will change and our children will move away. To give ourselves a chance of living longer and having healthier lives, we must be at peace with ourselves.

Sources: https://www.byu.edu  https://www.cmu.edu