While many of us focus primarily on diet and exercise to achieve better health, science suggests that our well-being also is influenced by the company we keep. Researchers have found that certain health behaviors appear to be contagious and that our social networks — in person and online — can influence obesity, anxiety and overall happiness. A recent report found that a person’s exercise routine was strongly influenced by his or her social network.
Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and author, has studied the health habits of people who live in so-called “blue zones” — regions of the world where people live far longer than the average. He noted that positive friendships are a common theme in the blue zones.
“Friends can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can,” said Buettner.
In Okinawa, Japan, a place where the average life expectancy for women is around 90, the oldest in the world, people form social networks called a “moai” — a group of five friends who offer social, logistic, emotional and even financial support for a lifetime.
“It’s a very powerful idea,” says Buettner. “Traditionally, their parents put them into moai’s when they are born, and they take a lifelong journey together.”
In a moai, the group benefits when things go well, such as sharing a bountiful crop, and the group’s families support each other when a child gets sick or someone dies. They also appear to influence each other’s lifelong health behaviors.
Buettner is working with federal and state health officials, including U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, to create “moai’s” in two dozen cities around the country. He recently spent time in Fort Worth, Texas, where several residents have formed walking moai’s — groups of people who meet regularly to walk and socialize.
“We’re finding that in some of these cities, you can just put people together who want to change health behaviors and organize them around walking or a plant-based potluck,” he said. “We nudge them into hanging out together for 10 weeks. We have created moai’s that are now several years old, and they are still exerting a healthy influence on members’ lives.”
One of my fellow travelers, Carol Auerbach of New York City, noted that surrounding herself with positive people has helped her cope with the loss of two husbands over the years. Auerbach was widowed at 30, when her children were just 2 and 5. With the support of her family and friends, and her own tenacity, she was able to support her family, and she eventually remarried. And then in 1992, her second husband died unexpectedly. To cope the second time, she focused on volunteer work and contributing to her community.
Auerbach said she believes that she learned to have a positive outlook from her mother, a Holocaust survivor who left Germany at the age of 19 and never saw her parents again.
“When I was growing up we were not affluent, and the four of us lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and my parents slept on a pullout sofa,” she said. “My mother never complained. I think she quietly knew that difficult things happen, but you feel very appreciative of the life you do have, and you feel a responsibility to make the most of it.”
Auerbach eventually found love again and has been married to her third husband for 14 years. “Life is too short to be around negative people,” she said. “I need people around me who care about me and are appreciative, and see the world as a glass half full, not half empty.”
“I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network,” said Buettner, who advises people to focus on three to five real-world friends rather than distant Facebook friends. “In general you want friends with whom you can have a meaningful conversation,” he said. “You can call them on a bad day and they will care. Your group of friends are better than any drug or anti-aging supplement, and will do more for you than just about anything.”
- The New York Times