Chatting to colleagues, neighbours and parents at the school gate benefits people’s wellbeing just as much as close friendships, study finds
- Regularly interacting with acquaintances prevents lung function decline
- This benefit occurs just as much as having strong partner or family relationships
- Lung function is measured as a marker of people’s health and longevity
- Interactions protect against stress and encourage people to be healthy
- The more acquaintances people have the less likely they are to smoke
Chatting to colleagues, neighbours and other parents on the playground benefits people’s wellbeing just as much as close friendships, new research suggests.
Regularly interacting with acquaintances prevents lung function decline just as much as having strong partner, family or friend relationships, a study found. Lung function is a marker of health and longevity.
Study author Professor Sheldon Cohen, from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, said: ‘Low-intimacy roles, like being a volunteer, were as equally effective in protecting lung function as high-intimacy ones, like having a spouse, which highlights the big impact a wide social network can make on your health’.
Researchers believe such interactions protect against stress and encourage people to lead healthier lifestyles.
Chatting to colleagues benefits people’s wellbeing just as much as close friendships (stock)
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DO BREAKS FROM FACEBOOK USE REDUCE STRESS?
Taking a five-day break from Facebook reduces people’s stress levels, research suggested in April 2018.
Abstaining from the social-media site lowers the amount of the stress-hormone cortisol people produce, a study found.
Yet, the benefits may not be clear cut, with people reporting a reduced sense of wellbeing after not visiting the website for less than a week, yet many are happy to check in again, the research adds.
Researchers believe quitting Facebook enables people to escape an overload of information but also cuts them off socially.
They wrote: ‘Our results suggest that the typical Facebook user may occasionally find the large amount of social information available taxing and Facebook vacations could ameliorate this stress – at least in the short term.’
Results further suggest that while not visiting Facebook causes people’s cortisol levels to reduce, they do not report feeling any less stressed.
Study author Eric Vanman, from the University of Queensland, who frequently takes social-media breaks himself, said: ‘While participants in our study showed an improvement in physiological stress by giving up Facebook, they also reported lower feelings of wellbeing.
‘People said they felt more unsatisfied with their life and were looking forward to resuming their Facebook activity.
‘It seems that people take a break because they’re too stressed but return to Facebook whenever they feel unhappy because they have been cut off from their friends.
‘It then becomes stressful again after a while, so they take another break. And so on.’
How the research was carried out
The researchers analysed more than 4,000 people aged between 52 and 94.
The participants’ lung function was assessed at the start of the study and four years later.
At least once a month, the participants were asked to report on their social interactions.
‘Every social role protects you more’
Results suggest that the more interactions a person has, the better their lung function is.
Professor Cohen told SF Gate: ‘We found that social integration has a graded effect, so that every additional social role protects you that much more.’
The researchers believe people with more acquaintances are also less likely to smoke and more likely to exercise.
The findings were published in the journal Health Psychology.
A photo a day keeps the blues away
This comes after research released last April suggested taking a photo a day is good for people’s wellbeing.
Posting images in online photo-sharing forums for two months gives people a sense of routine, boosts their interaction with others and makes them feel more engaged with their surroundings, a study found.
A daily photo also encourages people to leave the house, with 76 per cent of the pictures in the study being taken outdoors, the research adds.
Some even claim sharing photos with others helped them cope with a death or illness in the family, the study found.
The researchers, from Lancaster University, said the practice is ‘an active process of creating meaning, in which a new conceptualisation of wellbeing emerges.’
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