Frequent and active communication can not only improve mood, but also actually prolong life. These are the results of a large-scale study conducted by specialists from Harvard Medical School.
Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Robert Waldinger, who has studied the impact of social connections on well-being, notes that the main component of health and happiness is quality relationships with other people.
According to him, a constant feeling of loneliness and social isolation can be as harmful to the body as obesity or the habit of smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. Moreover, communication skills have the property of “atrophying” if they are not used.
The researchers don't give clear instructions, but they insist that it's not the number of friends that matters, but the depth of interaction. Even short daily conversations with a few close people have a powerful therapeutic effect.
But isolation should be avoided. Scientists emphasize that an active social life — even in the form of communication with salespeople, colleagues, or neighbors — noticeably improves mental health and helps to cope with stress more easily.
