Why time with friends is even healthy

Friendship and positive social contacts have a healing effect on the human organism

Being together with good friends, close confidants and dear acquaintances thrives on understanding, affection, helpfulness, empathy, appreciation, respect and trust. A stable social network with close acquaintances and friends is considered the strongest weapon in the fight against loneliness, which has been proven to reduce the body's own production of pro-inflammatory stress hormones, which fuel inflammatory processes in the human organism and potentially increase the probability of various clinical pictures. Friendship is therefore an effective instrument that actually promotes health and increases individual lifespan.

Loneliness and the lack of positive social contacts is a risk factor for health

Scientific studies show that loneliness has a negative effect on human health comparable to smoking. Lack of social relationships therefore damages the human health condition just as intensively as the daily consumption of 15 cigarettes. In contrast, the studies plausibly support the thesis that a close-knit positive social network is a sustainable health-promoting gain for the physical and mental condition of the individual.

Those who are closely connected to third parties through positive social contacts therefore have a comparatively lower risk of dying than people who live in social isolation without contact with friends, acquaintances and relatives. According to studies, the reason for this is that people who are integrated into a stable social network perceive themselves as part of a group that is responsible for the well-being of others. Analogously, in direct comparison to people who are socially isolated, such people pay more attention to themselves and relatively rarely take risks that can endanger their health.

Social relationships that are classified as positive and give people the feeling of being appreciated, loved, understood and needed serve as a catalyst for individual satisfaction, which is directly linked to personal health.

Das Pflegen von Freundschaften pusht die Gesundheit und reduziert das Alzheimerrisiko 

The conscious cultivation of friendships and dear acquaintances is therefore an essential building block for maintaining one's own physical and mental health and promoting it in a targeted manner. The close, trusting exchange with friends relieves the psyche, helps to cope with stress, dampens the synthesis of the body's own stress messengers and reliably drives away loneliness and sadness.

Friendships can be maintained in different ways. For example, physical proximity is not a determining criterion for the conscious cultivation of friendships. Long phone calls or video calls, which are easily possible with modern smartphones, also strengthen the bond of friendship. Nevertheless, shared moments such as visits to the café or barbecue and game evenings on the terrace at home play a special role. Laughing together not only promotes social relationships, but also releases happiness hormones that are beneficial to well-being. Especially in the warmer months, people like to enjoy the last rays of sunshine in the garden with friends while exchanging ideas intensively. Despite the advancing hour and decreasing outside temperatures, this conversation can be continued comfortably thanks to a gas patio heater from poolakademie.de. The visually appealing heat dispenser thus creates the framework for long conversations and relaxed evenings that promote friendship and health in equal measure.

The permanent, lively exchange with third parties also stimulates certain nerve pathways in the human brain that are responsible for mental fitness and communication. Especially in increasing age, social contacts prove to be an effective preventive remedy against Alzheimer's. According to statements by the Alzheimer's Research Initiative e.V., loneliness maximizes the likelihood of establishing depressive moods or depression. A lack of social contacts is also accompanied by a lack of communication, so that lonely people do not sufficiently train the regions in the brain responsible for nerve exchange and their risk of Alzheimer's disease increases.