Friendship: A ticket to a healthier life
Friendships and positive relationships are essential to the maintenance of our mental health and wellbeing, from birth and throughout our whole lives.
As we age, we begin to fall away from daily interactions with others. We retire, and we might not be able to keep up with our favourite hobbies like we used to. Communication with others, helps to keep our minds focused and give us experiences that helps us stay emotionally linked. Changes with ageing can be overwhelming and leave a sense of loneliness. Many older adults experience these feelings, however one way to maintain happiness is to keep one thing consistent. Companionship.
For most of us we are genetically designed to be social beings, it gives us a feeling of belonging and importance which impacts our mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Having companionship with other people in any positive way is very beneficial for us.
The Health and Retirement Study found that loneliness and isolation are the main culprits of health deterioration in ageing adults. Some conditions that have been linked to this include: sleep deprivation and daily functioning, mental health and cognition problems, increased vascular problems, and even increased blood pressure issues. These are just a few of the vast conditions that can increase risk of mortality. It was said that stress can also weaken the immune system, cause other intense feelings and emotions such as loneliness and can then lead to depression.
Research has shown that there are definite links between meaningful social interaction and improved health, well-being and longer life expectancy. Interestingly the U.S. National Institutes of Health, have found and reported that something as small as a hug has found to lower ones blood pressure and increases oxytocin (a powerful feel-good hormone that has physical and psychological effects, including influencing social behaviour and emotions).
Any amount of increase in our social isolation is not healthy, because friendship isn't just about fun, fellowship and emotional health, it is known to help improve physical health too.
Why Companionship is Great for Your Health
1. Companionship can extend your life
People that have good social connections are less likely to die prematurely, compared with those who are isolated. In fact, according to a 2010 review of research, the effect of social ties on life span is twice as strong as that of exercising, and equivalent to that of quitting smoking.
In that review, researchers reviewed 148 previous studies on social links and mortality, together they included more than 300,000 participants. These studies found that measures of the strength of people's social relationships, from their number of friends to their integration into the community, were all linked to decreased mortality rates.
2. Having companionship makes you generally healthier
In other studies they compared the biological stats of people who reported being socially isolated, with people that reported to have had lots of friends over their life span. Using four big studies of hundreds to thousands of people aged between 12 and 91, they compared individuals blood pressure, body mass index, waist circumference and levels of the inflammation marker C-reactive protein and more.
What they found was people with less social interaction, had worse health conditions compared to those with higher levels of social ties. For example, among the people in the study who were older in age and lacked social connections, this group more than doubled the risk of high blood pressure (raising it by 124 percent).
3. Companionship can help keep your mind sharp
Having people around you that make you feel you belong, may support with keeping your mind sharp. A 2012 study found that the risk of dementia increased due to their feelings of loneliness.
4. A problem shared is a problem halved
We all need someone to lean on. A major study published in the journal The Lancet in 1989 found that women with breast cancer who were randomly assigned to attend support groups, with similar conditions reported to have a better quality of life and lived longer, compared to other women in a control group that did not access these groups. Which highlights the importance of social interaction and its benefits for good health and well-being.
Important for our service values
We pride ourselves for this service that we offer, we have personally seen the huge benefits this brings to the individuals we support. To us, this is one of the key elements of what we do in supporting people within our service. We are here to share and problem solve with you, we want to be a friend as well as a support network. We are dedicated to ensure that you feel happy and content in what ever it is that you like to do!
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