Make friends and live longer
Strong relationships with friends, family and colleagues can lower your risk of death by up to 50 per cent, a study has found.
In comparison, low social interaction was just as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or being an alcoholic, and twice as harmful as being obese.
Relationships provide a sense of meaning and purpose in people’s lives, which in turn encouraged better self-care and less risk taking, she said. ”[They] also have a direct influence on physiological processes linked to health including blood pressure and immune functioning,” said Professor Holt-Lunstad, whose study is published in the journal PLoS Medicine.
