Celebrating friendships for better health
"With every true friendship, we build more firmly the foundations on which the peace of the whole world rests." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Saturday 30 July is The International Day of Friendship and what better way to celebrate it than reaching out to some friends you haven’t spoken in a while.
It might turn out that doing just that will have a positive effect not only on your friend’s health and wellbeing, but also your own.
The events of the last few years have certainly tested us in all areas - personal, work, relationships, and of course, health.
It has been hard to maintain friendships, especially with those people we weren’t close with before the pandemic, as we became more insular and distanced ourselves as much as possible. For some, the anxiety about getting Covid-19 has led to increased isolation and withdrawal from normal ways of connecting.
The pandemic has created a great deal of loneliness and challenged the mental health of many, and yet we were also reminded of our community spirit and reflected on what is really important in life. Neighbours reached out to check on elderly neighbours, friends and family went all out in sharing their love from a distance on birthdays. Despite the struggle, the pandemic has shown the true gold that lights up humanity all over the world.
And now it is time to let that light shine once again, for The International Day of Friendship.
Reach out to people you’ve lost contact with.
Let your loved ones know how much you care.
Connect with people in the community who you rarely meet.
Let this day incentivise you to connect and celebrate friendship.
Announced by the UN General Assembly in 2011,
The International Day of Friendship promotes friendship between individuals, cultures, and countries to enhance peace, understand and reconcile differences, and build bridges between communities.
Through all the separation and division between communities that we’ve experienced these last few years, this is an opportunity to unite, celebrate our similarities and differences, and come together in solidarity.
It starts with something small. Reach out to long lost friends and say hello. Stop in and check on your elderly neighbours. Start a conversation with your local small shop owner. Have a picnic in the park and invite your colleagues. Find a way to connect and spend time with one another. And don’t stay insular. Go out of your comfort zone. Go to a meet-up event. Visit a suburb with different ethnicities. Smile at people in the street.
Connecting and creating friendship with others will be good for them - and good for you too!
Loneliness is unhealthy.
According to research by Holt-Lunstad et al (2010), the mortality risk for loneliness is on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Those who are lonely are also more likely to suffer from obesity and dementia.
There are many complex factors involved here, but it goes without saying that forming or maintaining friendships, by logical conclusion, could help prevent obesity and dementia, simply by making people more active, more social, more likely to go outside and talk and laugh and all of those good things.
This topic also brings to mind the health and happiness experienced in the well-studied regions known as the Blue Zones, where social connection is one of the key factors that contribute to the health and longevity of the oldest living communities in the world. People stay connected with those around them and wake up with purpose and drive, contributing to the community daily or weekly.
So if you haven’t connected with your friends in a while, or if you’ve become more isolated during the pandemic, now might be the time to reach out to others and re-establish those bonds. Connecting can certainly decrease your loneliness, as well as theirs, and, you never know, it just might improve your health too!
Reference:
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B. and Layton, J. B. (2010) “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review”, PLOS Medicine, <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316>