Excellent social integration can reduce your risk to die by 91% (translates to around 9 healthy years)
The importance of social relationships are now on a par with other well-established risks like smoking and alcohol consumption, and exceeds physical inactivity and obesity.
It’s not so much about the structure of your social network than it is about the perception and functionality of the interactions that you have, says the large meta study that analysed over 300.000 people in hundreds of research papers. (Holt-Lunstad & al, 2010)
Good social connections
Already a significant impact was reached by having the perception that there is one person who you can count on (around 50%).
Excellent social integration
The largest impact of 91% reduction in mortality was observed with people who had excellent social integration. This means frequent interactions between different ties and networks, and also the feeling of both-sided availability: You feel needed, and when you need assistance people can help you with different resources.
Possible reasons
One of the main physiological reasons seems to be stress reduction. Authors also found evidence about better health practices, immune function, and immune-mediated inflammatory response, but these alone could not completely explain the effect. Multiple biologic pathways are assumed to being influenced, which then in turn influence a number of possible diseases.
Next step.
Take action.
Think about one of your connections you would like to know better and call or send a message.
Speak about things you both have in common. Tell a personal anecdote from your side on the topic and encourage the other person to tell you hers.
Share.
The act of giving back.
Request an access to our Facebook group and share what you learned. Check how others did it. If you are the first one to comment, leave hesitation aside, and pave us the way! Join now.
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Also, check out Tassilo Weber’s book Life Extension Design.
