7 years ago

The secret to living longer may be your social life

The science of friendship

Jeff Thomas from cctv reports:

In villages in Sardinia, 10 times as many men live past 100 than the average. Why? A key reason is that they are not lonely. Psychologist Susan Pinker on the importance of face-to-face contact in our era of disbanded families and virtual connections

Psychologist Susan Pinker believes that what keeps islanders healthy isn’t the low-fat, gluten-free diet or the sunny disposition. On the contrary, she attributes it to their emphasis on face-to-face interactions and the upholding of close personal relationships. The speaker gives an inspirational talk addressing the matter of longevity. She looks determined to uncover all the secrets to help different persons around the globe live to 100 and beyond.

People with active social lives have higher cancer survival rates than people who are isolated

In giving her inspirational talk to the audience, she brings forward one intriguing fact. She outlined that in the developed nations, women have a higher tendency to live longer than men. In fact, they live between six to seven years longer. In 2015, Lancet published a report indicating that in the rich countries men are twice likely to die than women at any age.

However, the blue zone in Sadinia which happens to be an Italian island in the Mediterranean goes against the norm. Here, men have been seen to live as long as women. There are six times as many centenarians as on the Italian mainland which happens to be 200 miles away. It piques on anyone’s curiosity to understand the reason behind this phenomenon.

Being sociable can lengthen your life – but Pinker risks turning what should be a pleasure into a self-improvement chore

The speaker says that she resolved to delve into an in-depth research of the habits as well as the sights of the place. She experienced a critical revelation by the end of her study. The new discovery was that genes happened to account for just 25 percent of their longevity whereas the other 75 percent had everything to do with lifestyle.

The big question remained to be what humans needed to do in order to be able to live to hit 100 or beyond. She believed that there was indeed something that was being done right by the people occupying this particular region. As a matter of fact, solitude did not have a place in the lives of the occupants of this particular area. They constantly held parties and interacted in a lively manner. Human interactions play a major role in longevity according to the speaker and they need to be upheld by all means.

Learn more about super longevity as Pinker explains what it takes to live to 100 and beyond: 

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