The ObservatoryRelationships are one of the best-documented health factors we overlook
We measure blood pressure, steps and sleep. Something that is linked to a long life about as strongly as smoking rarely makes the list: your relationships.
If there were a pill that lowered mortality as much as strong social bonds do, it would be the best-selling drug in the world. A major meta-analysis that pooled 148 studies found that people with strong relationships had roughly 50 percent higher odds of surviving the follow-up period than those with weak ones. The effect was comparable to quitting smoking, and larger than the effect of obesity or sedentary living.
Yet relationships are what we cut back on first when life gets squeezed. We skip the dinner, we don't answer the message, we think we'll get in touch once things calm down. In the moment that sounds reasonable, and it isn't. We systematically deprioritize the very factor the research points to most clearly.
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Why does it work?
Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton (2010), PLOS Medicine: a meta-analysis of 148 studies found that strong social relationships were linked to roughly 50 percent higher likelihood of surviving the follow-up period, on a par with quitting smoking. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed participants since 1938, points in the same direction: relationship quality at age 50 predicted health and well-being at 80.
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