Did you see this? I knew Facebook was good for my well-being. Also, I am making more of an effort to keep up with my friends. I was talking to one the other day, and we agreed that we have to keep our little group together, even if we are starting to drive each other crazy (we seem more entrenched in our personal views and eccentricities as time goes on) because it's good for our health!
WASHINGTON — Having good social relationships — friends, marriage or children — may be every bit as important to a healthy lifespan as quitting smoking, losing weight or taking certain medications, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
People with strong social relationships were 50 percent less likely to die early than people without such support, the team at Brigham Young University in Utah found.
They suggest that policymakers look at ways to help people maintain social relationships as a way of keeping the population healthy.
"A lack of social relationships was equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day," psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
Her team conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examine social relationships and their effects on health. They looked at 148 studies that covered more than 308,000 people for their analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine at http://www.plosmedicine.org.
Having low levels of social interaction was equivalent to being an alcoholic, was more harmful than not exercising and was twice as harmful as obesity.
Social relationships had a bigger impact on premature death than getting an adult vaccine to prevent pneumonia, than taking drugs for high blood pressure and far more important than exposure to air pollution, they found.
4 comments:
An Italian comedian said that it's scientifically proven that smoking causes scientific research and studies.
Maybe it's because of the times we're leaving, but when I read this kind of news, I'm left with a distinct sense of "What!?" at the end.
I'm not sure whether it's because of the research in itself or the way that it's presented in the news.
"Social Relationships" is quite a vague concept. "Strong Social Relationships" even more.
How do you classify them? Does people you say hello everyday because you always meet them classify as relationship? Does the fact I'm not on Facebook, thus without contacts, friends and buddies (as virtual they may be) mean I got less social relationships than other people?
I think I'll have a look at the whole study and not only to the report on the newspaper, as I'm really curious now on how they weighted the relationships.
Well, anecdotally I can report that I went to dinner with some of my friends last night and I feel much cheerier and refreshed this morning. :)
I wonder if Facebook even counts? I'm thinking that it probably doesn't unless you actually see your "friends" once in a while.
Yes, but is it a causal link?
Isn't it possible that the kind of people who care about and seek out social relationships are the ones who are likely to live longer anyway?
I don't see any easy way of doing a double blind study on this. All we have is a correlation.
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