Friends Are Benefits

“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”
—Thomas Aquinas

“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wise words from our ancestors. Wise words.

A fascinating scientific study drives home the value of friendship. The researchers brought each subject to the base of a steep hill. Standing there, by themself, looking up the hill, each subject was asked to estimate how steep the hill was. On another occasion, each subject was brought back to the same hill, this time accompanied by a friend. Looking up the hill, with their friend by their side, each subject was again asked to estimate how steep the hill was. Subjects estimated the hill to be less steep when their friend was there with them. (1) Think about the steep hills you’re facing in your life. Your friends make them less steep.

Your friendships don’t make your life better in a fluffy, intangible way. Another fascinating scientific study elucidates the impact of friendship on your tangible, “physical” well-being. Researchers examined the relationship between the quantity and quality of subjects’ friendships and their probability of getting a cold. Controlling for other variables known to cause colds, having more high-quality friendships reduced a subject’s chance of getting a cold. (2) Your friendships keep you well.

On the other hand, lack of friendship can be deadly. A massive body of scientific evidence implicates social isolation as a leading cause of premature death. For example:

“Substantial evidence now indicates that individuals lacking social connections (both objective and subjective social isolation) are at risk for premature mortality. The risk associated with social isolation and loneliness is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality, including those identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (physical activity, obesity, substance abuse, responsible sexual behavior, mental health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization, and access to health care). A substantial body of research has also elucidated the psychological, behavioral, and biological pathways by which social isolation and loneliness lead to poorer health and decreased longevity. In light of mounting evidence that social isolation and loneliness are increasing in society, it seems prudent to add social isolation and loneliness to lists of public health concerns. The professional literature and public health initiatives can accord social isolation and loneliness greater recognition.” (3)

“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.” (4)

The researchers went out of their way to emphasize something:

“Overall, the influence of both objective and subjective social isolation on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.” (3)

“The influence of social relationships on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.” (4)

Well-established risk factors for mortality include smoking, consumption of junk food, and a sedentary lifestyle. Add lack of friendship to the list. That’s how important friendship is.

It makes sense. We humans are highly social animals, so social isolation is a big stressor for people. When it persists, a person experiences it as chronic stress.

Chronic stress causes chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation breaks a person down and is part of the development of every lifestyle ailment. Again, your friendships impact our tangible, “physical” well-being:

“Our analyses of multiple dimensions of perceived social relationships and inflammation support the hypothesis that long-term social support and strain, particularly social strain, are significantly related to inflammation levels in a national sample of adults. By assessing social support and strain simultaneously and longitudinally, we found that the prospective association with inflammation is only modest for social support, whereas that for social strain is more robust and remains significant after adjusting for all additional covariates. This finding is consistent with prior evidence that finds social strain to be a direct contributor to psychosocial distress that overrides the protective effect of support, and further suggests that the psychosocial distress resulting from strained relationships has the potential to influence underlying physiological processes tied to later health.” (5)

Let’s hang out in the journal section of the library, my favorite section since college, for a few more minutes. I have one more scientific study today to tell you about. In this one, the researchers explored the relationship between Facebook use and wellness. Here’s what they found:

“Our analyses here are very unusual in that we used 3 waves of nationally representative survey data, including real-world social network measures, in combination with objective measures of Facebook use that were determined from each respondent’s Facebook account. Using this rich source of data, we were able to investigate the associations of Facebook use and of real-world social network activity with self-reported physical health, self-reported mental health, self-reported life satisfaction, and BMI. Although there were some variations in the significance of the different measures across outcomes, a clear pattern emerged. Our results showed that although real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being. These associations were robust to multivariate cross-sectional analyses, as well as to 2-wave prospective analyses.” (6)

They also noted:

“The negative associations of Facebook use were comparable to or greater in magnitude than the positive impact of offline interactions, which suggests a possible tradeoff between offline and online relationships.” (6)

That’s right. Time and energy spent with your Facebook “friends” compromise your flesh-and-blood friendships, the ones Aquinas and Emerson spoke about with a great deal of gratitude. I think we’re all wise enough to understand why.

When it comes to your self-care to-do list for today, I invite you to make sure to include nurturing your friendships. It’s important to check off eating some great meals and doing a great workout, but there’s more to wellness than that. Your friendships also keep you well.

May your friendships be a highlight of your day today.

(1) Social Support and the Perception of Geographical Slant. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2008, 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.04.011.
(2) Sociability and Susceptibility to the Common Cold. Psychological Science, 2003, 10.1111/1467-9280.01452.
(3) Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2015, 10.1177/1745691614568352.
(4) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review. PLOS Medicine, 2010, 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.
(5) Social Support, Social Strain and Inflammation: Evidence from a National Longitudinal Study of U.S. Adults. Social Science & Medicine, 2014, 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.02.01.
(6) Association of Facebook Use with Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2017, 10.1093/aje/kww189.

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.