Social Relationships And Health

There is a new study out which suggests that lack of good social relationships can actually be as detrimental to your health (measured by mortality rates) as being a smoker or an alcoholic!  The study is actually a “meta-analysis”, meaning they looked at a number of other studies (almost 150), and analyzed the results of all of them to look for consistent patterns.

One big question is how social relationships affect health.  The authors discuss several possibilities, such as the possibility that good social relationships improve immune functioning.  But then again, there is still the question of how relationships might affect immune functioning.  My own guess (which is certainly not original with me) is that when we’re in a certain emotional state, such as anxiety or depression or happiness, in addition to the feelings we experience there are also other physiological changes that accompany the feeling.  For example, when we feel anxious, we also typically have a faster heart rate, sweating, etc.  I suspect that these physiological changes have consequences for our long-term health.

You can check out the full article here:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000316