We Need Each Other

Have you ever heard anyone say they don't need anyone? I don't need friends. I don't need you. Well, it has finally been proven that they are kidding themselves. According to a new report by Reuters . . .

Having good social relationships — friends, marriage or children — may be every bit as important to a healthy lifespan as quitting smoking, losing weight or taking certain medications, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

People with strong social relationships were 50 percent less likely to die early than people without such support, the team at Brigham Young University in Utah found.

They suggest that policymakers look at ways to help people maintain social relationships as a way of keeping the population healthy.

"A lack of social relationships was equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day," psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Her team conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examine social relationships and their effects on health. They looked at 148 studies that covered more than 308,000 people for their analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine at http://www.plosmedicine.org.

Having low levels of social interaction was equivalent to being an alcoholic, was more harmful than not exercising and was twice as harmful as obesity.

Social relationships had a bigger impact on premature death than getting an adult vaccine to prevent pneumonia, than taking drugs for high blood pressure and far more important than exposure to air pollution, they found.

"For instance, trends reveal reduced intergenerational living, greater social mobility, delayed marriage, dual-career families, increased single-residence households, and increased age-related disabilities," they wrote.

"More specifically, over the last two decades there has been a three-fold increase in the number of Americans who report having no confidant," they added.

"Such findings suggest that despite increases in technology and globalization that would presumably foster social connections, people are becoming increasingly more socially isolated."

So if you hear someone say they don't need friends or confidants just know that they are not only wrong, but they may just be dead wrong! The fact is WE NEED EACH OTHER!