According to The New York Times, research shows that close friendships are necessary for optimal health and well-being. A key to close friendship is intimacy, and a big part of intimacy is being able to be fully yourself and be understood by others.
If close friendships really are vital to people’s well-being, one might assume we would be able to make them easily. However, it turns out that the opposite may be true: close friendships are important to people because they are so difficult to form.
According to John Cacioppo, a social neuroscientist, humans evolved a natural bias against easily making friends because, in the past, avoiding an enemy was more important than making a friend. If a person mistook a friend for a foe, then that would not endanger their survival, but mistaking a foe for a friend could lead to death.
Culturally, modern people are also more focused on career success, financial accomplishments and family milestones than we are on connection with others. Sue Johnson, one of the leading psychologists in the fields of bonding, attachment and romantic relationships, points out that when someone lists their life goals, making close friends or getting closer to existing friends rarely get mentioned.
A major study shows that people with strong social relationships increased their odds of survival over a certain time period by 50 percent. That's on par with ceasing smoking, and nearly twice as beneficial as physical activity in terms of decreasing your odds of dying early.
The researchers reviewed 148 studies that examined the link between social relationships and mortality. The studies involved more than 308,000 participants.
Read more: https://www.livescience.com/6769-live-longer-friends.html