Friendship Day 2019: Here Are 5 Health Benefits of Having Friends

In today's modern world, when we are bogged down by societal pressure and professional life, friendship becomes an important lifeline. A friend is a person with whom one can share their most intimate dreams, desires, and fears. Friends not only give one mental and emotional tranquility, it has immense health benefits as well.

On Friendship Day 2019, as the world celebrates amity, here are listing 5 health benefits of having a friend.

Friendship may extend life span

A 2010 research Conducted by Brigham Young University in Utah found that the effect of social ties, like friendship, on life span is twice as strong as that of exercising and equivalent to that of quitting smoking. The study found that measures of the strength of people's social relationships, were all liked to a decrease in mortality.

Friends make a person healthier

A study conducted by the University of North Carolina, found that health was worse in people who had weaker social ties. Reporting the work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2015, the researchers were found to have to come to this conclusion after comparing biomarkers such as blood pressure, BMI, waist circumference, and levels of the inflammation marker C-reactive protein.

Friendship may keep the mind active

A study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry in 2012 found that older people's dementia risk increased with their feelings of loneliness.

Friends help cope with rejection

A 2011 study found that in 4th graders, that having friends helped youngsters cope with the stress of being picked or rejected by classmates. The researchers measured cortisol, a stress hormone, in the study participants' saliva and found that bring excluded by peers raised levels of cortisol, indicating chronic stress.

Friends influence each other

A 2008 study found that when a friend when a person becomes obese, his friends start adding extra pound as well. However, the study experts overlooked the bright side to the research which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. Turned out, becoming thin was equally contagious according to study researcher James Fowler.

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