by Ram
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| The Two Friends by Toulouse-Lautrec |
Yoga philosophy too expounds the concept of true friendship. In the samadhi pada of the yoga sutras, Patanjali equates friendship with mental strength by declaring:
“Focusing with perfect discipline, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness.”
As true friendship blooms, gone are greed and selfishness, and at the core is the desire to be happy, selfless, and compassionate.
Now, you may wonder what friendship has to do with healthy aging. As it turns out, other than exercising, eating vegetables and fruits, and giving up on tobacco, a not so obvious trait that is known to extend the health span of an individual is true friendship. Having a supportive network of colleagues lowers the risk of early death. This was concluded by researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel who followed 820 adults over a 20 year period (se Work-Based Predictors of Mortality: A 20-Year Follow-Up of Healthy Employees). The researchers noted that those who had a large of network of friends and enjoyed good friendship at work had a significantly lower risk of dying from any cause. Since the subjects came from a wide spectrum of background and professions, the researchers controlled for several factors that affect health and mortality including but not limited to blood pressure, alcohol, cigarettes, diet, preexisting health conditions, and exercise, among others. After accounting for all these influences, the researchers were surprised to note that the subjects with the most supportive at-work peer relationships had lower rates of mortality, and this effect held over the entire 20-year period of the study. The effect was highly significant among individuals between ages 38-43.
While this was the first study that focused on the importance of professional friends and relationships, the results serve as an interesting outcome to previous studies showing that extended longevity is influenced more by good friends than close family relationships. Even more striking research comes from a 2010 meta-analysis Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review of 148 research studies involving 300,000 people. The work published in PloS medicine found that those people with the best social networks had an astounding fifty percent lower risk of dying than those with limited social ties.
Health professionals have long suspected that friends, friendship, and social networks have direct biological effects on health (see What Are Friends for?). And research studies have now shown that isolation coupled with fear experienced by women living in a high crime neighborhood of Chicago triggers accelerated growth of "triple negative breast tumor," which is most prevalent in women of African descent (see Friendships Starve Tumors). Researchers also found that a surge in the stress hormone cortisol caused by social isolation increases the activity of certain gene that make aberrant proteins that favor the formation of breast tumors. Women who maintained a strong social network and scored low on a psychometric test for loneliness not only had a normal cortisol cycle but did not show any evidence of cancer (see Loneliness and Cortisol: Momentary, Day-to-day, and Trait Associations).
What do all these findings mean? They tell us is that you'll not only stay longer with a little help from your friends but you will also reduce your risk of developing breast cancer and possibly other diseases. Friendships seem to have the healing power to counteract several negative factors in life. Why friends seem to matter to health so much is the subject of some debate. Most agree, however, that friends can help each other get through difficult times, lessening the impact of stress. Friendship brings more support and less turmoil than family relationships do, and also helps to boost the immune system.
If having friends and cultivating friendship can make such a big impact to life, survival and longevity, can you imagine the implications for the health care professionals, should they choose to pay attention? Rather than prescribing pills, steroids, and antibiotics, doctors need to encourage patients to hang out with their friends, and public health programs should devote more resources to helping people come together to cultivate companionship. Take home message: Guard against loneliness and take steps to augment your social network. We need a social circle to be healthy and to enjoy a long life!
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