Valerie Sanderson:
“Back in 1938, American scientists started following two groups.
The first, very privileged Harvard undergraduates. The second, people from some of Boston’s poorest and most troubled homes.
They found that in both groups, the single most important determinant of a long, healthy, and happy life, was good relationships.”
Robert Waldinger:
“The news was that the quality of our relationships could predict whether we’re likely to get coronary artery disease, or arthritis, or type 2 diabetes.
That was the shocker for us, and then many other studies began to find the same thing.
The best hypothesis is that good relationships help us manage stress.
Stress in a natural part of life, we go into fight-or-flight mode, our bodies rev up when we meet a stressor.
But then we’re meant to come back to baseline.
And what we found is that social isolation, loneliness, not having good relationships, creates a kind of chronic stress situation where our bodies never go back to equilibrium.
Whereas if we have good relationships, we have people we can turn to, talk to, get help from when we’re under stress.”
Source: Global News Podcast: Nigeria opposition calls for election to be scrapped
