In their study Social Relationships and Mortality Risk, BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith have found that your social connections – friends, family, neighbors and colleagues – improve your odds of survival by 50 percent.
In fact, living a life with few social connections is….
Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day
Equivalent to being an alcoholic
More harmful than not exercising
Twice as harmful as obesity
The Study
The researchers analyzed data from 148 previously published longitudinal studies that measured frequency of human interaction and tracked health outcomes for a period of seven and a half years on average.
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Because information on relationship quality was unavailable, the 50 percent increased odds of survival may underestimate the benefit of healthy relationships. “The data simply shows whether they were integrated in a social network,” Holt-Lunstad said. “That means the effects of negative relationships are lumped in there with the positive ones. They are all averaged together.”
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Dr. Holt-Lunstad said there are [...]
Original post by healthhabits
