Friendship: it may be far more important to your health than you think!
Friendship may be far more important to your health than you realize.
Here at Luxe we talk a lot about eating right and staying physically active, but nutrition and exercise are not the only keys to wellness. One of my favorite topics from our health coaching training was our review of Dan Buettner’s fascinating research on the Blue Zones, the five areas in the world where people are living longer, happier lives than anywhere else on earth. No surprise here, they are eating a very healthy diet with lots of natural exercise as part of their everyday living but for me, the most interesting factor in their longevity was the role of social connections. Whether it was Greece, Italy, Costa Rica, Japan or Loma Linda, California, all five Blue Zones feature very strong social and community connections. For example, did you know that as a young child in Okinawa, Japan, you are placed in a group with four other children called your moai (pronounced mo-eye)? Your moai serves as your second family, a social support network meant to last a lifetime. When Dan Buettner visited Okinawa for his research he met with moai members who had been friends for 90 years and were still meeting regularly for tea to share advice, gossip and experience life together.
As I am sure many of you will agree, the value of social connections was never more apparent than during the pandemic. People everywhere were feeling lonely and isolated. We realized how we were taking social interactions for granted when we could no longer go out to dinner with friends, chat with neighbors passing by, travel to see loved ones, play sports or go to the library. Many of us realized for the first time during covid that social interaction is a NEED! To fill that need we turned to Zoom. Before long hosting Zoom birthday parties and Zoom happy hours was the norm. I’d go so far as to say, we would have found a way to survive without toilet paper but not without Zoom. For me personally, the pandemic was a time to reconnect with my childhood friends of 47 years. We were always in touch for birthdays and the big milestones but rarely had time for small talk or the trials and tribulations of daily life. But then the world stopped and suddenly there was plenty of time to catch up with my “lifelong peeps”. What started as a FaceTime call at the end of March 2020 has continued for the past 28 months every Wednesday night at 8pm. That may seem hard to believe but with very few exceptions over the past two plus years we have kept this time slot almost religiously. The weekly connection to these three women who know me almost twice as long as the people I live with has been an unexpected and cherished blessing. They are my moai. My tribe. We laugh, we cry, we have each other's backs and we could talk for hours! I love them dearly.
Who are your peeps? your tribe? your squad? your moai? Take a minute to think about the people who have had your back through the phases of your life’s journey. Maybe you have lost touch with an old neighbor, a friend or a family member you think about often but haven’t had the time to connect with. Wellness research shows that these connections can have a long term impact on your health and happiness. If you need a reason to reach out, here it is….reach out because your health and longevity depends on it!