Better Together
Fulfilling relationships are crucial:
“Data across 308,849 individuals, followed for an average of 7.5 years, indicate that individuals with adequate social relationships have a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor or insufficient social relationships. The magnitude of this effect is comparable with quitting smoking and it exceeds many well-known risk factors for mortality (e.g., obesity, physical inactivity). These findings also reveal significant variability in the predictive utility of social relationship variables, with multidimensional assessments of social integration being optimal when assessing an individual’s risk for mortality and evidence that social isolation has a similar influence on mortality to other measures of social relationships. The overall effect remained consistent across a number of factors, including age, sex, initial health status, follow-up period, and cause of death, suggesting that the association between social relationships and mortality may be general, and efforts to reduce risk should not be isolated to subgroups such as the elderly.” (1)
Fulfilling relationships keep you alive and well:
“The quality and quantity of individuals’ social relationships has been linked not only to mental health but also to both morbidity and mortality.” (1)
And the impact is right up there with eating well, exercising moderately, getting plenty of sleep, and refraining from drinking and smoking:
“The influence of social relationships on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.” (1)
Fulfilling relationships are important when you’re very young:
“There has been increasing interest in studying protective factors that promote health and well-being, beyond the traditional approach which focuses on reducing risk factors and illness. By examining data from two large prospective cohorts of adolescents and young adults, this study adds to the evidence that positive parenting may be one such asset that leads to better functioning across multiple domains of offspring health and well-being.” (2)
Fulfilling relationships are important when you’re very old:
“This study replicates and extends a growing body of prospective research showing that loneliness has adverse consequences for health and mortality. In a large, population-based national sample of older Americans, we replicated prior research by showing that feelings of loneliness are associated with increased mortality risk. Net of sociodemographic characteristics, social relationships, and health behaviors, older adults with the highest levels of loneliness were 1.96 times more likely to die within six years than those with the lowest levels of loneliness.” (3)
I invite you to turn away from “stubborn independence” and toward fierce interdependence.
I invite you to turn away from “proud self-reliance” and toward eager coreliance.
And when you’re struggling, instead of “holding it together”, I invite you to hold it, together with your peeps.
Remember:
Wellness starts with “we”.
Remember:
We’re better together.
(1) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review. PLOS Medicine, 2010, 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.
(2) Positive Parenting Improves Multiple Aspects of Health and Well-Being in Young Adulthood. Nature Human Behavior, 2019, 10.1038/s41562-019-0602-x.
(3) Loneliness, Health, and Mortality in Old Age: A National Longitudinal Study. Social Science & Medicine, 2012, 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.11.028.
About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.