Here’s how to find good friends, After working from home all day, your takeout order arrives and you start binge-watching your favorite show alone.
Sounds ideal, right? Except doing this routinely could shorten your life.
And that’s not because of the nutritional content of your dinner. It’s because having strong, positive relationships is one of the best ways to extend your life, according to research.
“Human beings just are a fundamentally social species. We have a fundamental need to belong,” said Dr. Amit Kumar, associate professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.
With everything else you have going on, why should you make a change? Because the cost of loneliness is huge.
“The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity,” wrote then US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy in his 2023 advisory on the “healing effects” of social connection .
The lack of strong social ties has been linked to a greater risk of problems with health or well-being, including more stress, high blood pressure, premature death and poor coping skills.
But finding friends as an adult can be hard. Some people’s mindsets hinder their ability to make connections, while a lack of affordable places to meet is a challenge for others, said Danielle Bayard Jackson, director of the Women’s Relational Health Institute.
But the effort is worth it. Here’s how Jackson and other experts suggest you combat those limitations and find your community.
