People Need People

A couple of days ago I went to a talk by Physicians for Social Responsibility. The talk was specifically about how human health will be affected by climate change, but one thing they mentioned was very interesting in general: having good social networks is better for your health than not smoking.

Social scientists had examined death rates during one of Chicago's major heat waves, and found that people in poor, black neighborhoods had the worst mortality rates. Except that, in three of the poorest and blackest neighborhoods, mortality rates were quite low. Researchers found that these neighborhoods also had a very strong social fabric, where neighbors knew each other and had lived near each other for a long time.

While part of the benefit of this is that people can come and check on each other when someone is sick or there is a large-scale environmental danger, people with a lot of friends just seem to be healthier in general. According to a Brigham Young study, having a low level of social interactions can be worse for you than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being obese, or not exercising; and it's equally as bad as being an alcoholic! This is pretty impressive stuff.

There's always the option of dwelling as a hermit in a solitary mountain cave, and some people seem to do really well like that. Inner peace can really trump a lot of external variables.  But if you're living with other people, maybe being friends with a good number of them is a good way to go.