Video: https://www.tiktok.com/@distilledscience/video/7476572519114296606
Transcript
Turns out, being social has a bigger impact on how long you will live than diet, exercise, obesity, binge drinking, or even smoking. As indicated by a meta-analysis of 148 studies across more than 300,000 people. There are many possible reasons for this, some we still don't fully understand. But let's start with evolution. Imagine it's 50,000 years ago. Night falls. Scenario 1. You're surrounded by your tribe. The fire crackles. Bob takes watch while you sleep deeply, your body fully relaxed. I am safe here. Scenario 2. You got lost and stuck alone out in the dark forest. Every snapping twig jolts you away. Your body stays vigilant. Heart racing, senses heightened, stress hormones flooding your body. Sleep is shallow if it comes at all. But even if only one in a hundred noises is a wolf, this hypervigilance might save your life. We evolved these systems to survive. But in today's world, that same biological system is still running. Your apartment may have locks. Your neighborhood may be safe. Your rational brain understands this. But your nervous system is still. The film is still waiting for trusted human contact before it can exit fight or flight mode, and stop scanning for danger. Our society evolved faster than our biology. We no longer live in a tribe, so we need to make conscious effort to incorporate regular human contact into our daily routine, which we'd actually measured via inflammatory blood markers and brain imaging, which I'll cover in the next video.
Additional notes
Do you ever feel stuck in sight or flight mode? ⚠️ Important note: these links are based on observational data and so cannot fully establish causality. This particular meta analysis was of 148 studies across 308,849 participants and focused on the impact of social relationships. The numbers for the other risk factors used as comparisons were each established by their own cited meta analyses. That being said, there is a large amount of variability when it comes to these types of estimates, so the big takeaway shouldn’t be the precise numbers of the comparison so much as the extremely high impact of strong social connections on our health and well being! Coming up: some cool science around oxytocin, both more nuance around what it is (not just a love hormone), and how to boost it + take advantage of it! 📚 Main study: doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316 #science #health #longevity
References
- Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316