Two unconnected events of the past two weeks made me look seriously into what adds years to one’s life.
I attended the 91st birthday celebration of a woman who is complete, happy and accomplished in every sense of these words. At 91, Nelia T. Gonzalez, whom I fondly call Tita Kumare (as she was a principal sponsor in my daughter’s wedding) is the picture of life, happiness, and nearly everything one may associate with being young. She still sends, and promptly responds to, text messages and attends meetings of the many organizations she belongs to as a director and officer, the most prominent of which are the Philippine Constitution Association and the Manila Overseas Press Club. Her memory is sharp as ever, even reminding people she is with of forthcoming activities and things that need to be done. One can only wonder in awe, what could her secret of longevity and mental alertness be?
On the other hand, a sister of a good friend of mine, who had hoped to live to 80 passed on at the fairly young age of 69 about two weeks ago. She too was intelligent, loved life, and had worthwhile advocacies. The basic distinction I saw between the lifestyles of these two women is that Nelia T. Gonzalez is surrounded by family and friends. My friend’s sister was unmarried and lived alone.
In many studies, it was found that family and social ties prolong life significantly. In an article by BeWell publications, which included an interview with Cecile Andrews, author and a former scholar affiliated with the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, it said that in our crazy society, social ties are pretty far down on our “to do” lists. Yet, connection to others is turning out to be more important than we thought. Studies indicate that social capital is one of the biggest predictors for health, happiness, and longevity. The problem is, the article said, we often do not recognize the importance of social connection. Our culture values hard work, success, and wealth, so it’s no surprise some of us do not set aside enough time for social ties when we think security lies in material things rather than other people.
Associate Clinical Professors of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Olds and Schwartz, argue in The Lonely American that loneliness is often mistaken for depression. Instead of connecting with others, we consume a pill. Being lonely is outside of our individualistic world view so we don’t even see it as a problem.
Harvard’s Robert Putnam writes about social capital in his book, Bowling Alone, and shows how social ties are important for personal well-being. Putnam says—to emphasize his point—that if you don’t belong to a group and you join one now, you’ll cut your chance of dying in half for the next year. And when you join a group, he adds, do more than just send in your dues. Come together with people face to face, volunteer for committees or agree to work on projects. By the same token, organizations shouldn’t just hold dull meetings. They need to have parties as well as conduct business in an interesting manner.
Some studies have shown that social ties may actually result in reduced incidence of colds and flu. Another research says that the number of friends one has correlates with longer life. Still other studies have found that people have better survival rates for diseases when they have family and social support.
In an article by Denise Mann of WebMD Health News, she said, “good friends and family can do more than make life worth living. These relationships can actually add years to your life.” A new study, she said, shows that people with many close friends and family around them will likely live a lot longer than lonesome people. The protective effect of having lots of healthy and fulfilling relationships is comparable to that of quitting smoking, the authors of the study state.
Mann said in her article that researchers analyzed 148 studies that examined the effect of social relationships and death risk. Together, these studies included 308,849 people who were followed for about 7.5 years on average. The results showed that people were 50 per cent more likely to be alive if they had strong social relationships. This finding was consistent regardless of age, gender, or health status and for all causes of death. The study found that in terms of long life, strong social ties can be as important as losing weight if you are obese and getting active if you are sedentary. Thus, Mann said, ‘‘the importance of social relationships needs to be added to the list of public health concerns.
The book, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, by Robert E. Lane, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale, brings together much of the research done on social capital over the last several years. It shows how social ties not only affect our personal health, but also our societal health. He observes that as prosperity in a society increases, social solidarity decreases. Happiness not only declines, people become more distrustful of each other as well as of their political institutions. Lane stresses that we must alter our priorities; we must increase our levels of companionship even at the risk of reducing our income.
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