Here's How Often Science Says You Should See Your Friends

FriendsWe’ve written before about the health benefits of socialising, especially when it comes to potentially helping to prevent the development of dementia. But it’s likely more than just a brain booster. Science suggests hanging out with your loved ones and having a strong social network may make you live longer, have a healthier heart, and even diversify your gut bacteria. In fact, when looking at a meta-analysis of 148 studies on the subject, Scientific American said that “by the study’s numbers, interpersonal social networks are more crucial to physical health than exercising or beating obesity.”They compared hanging out regularly to giving up a 15-a-day smoking habit (whoa).Unlike exercise recommendations, though, we aren’t given a firm figure on how often we should make time for our loved ones per week.So we have the prescription; what’s the dose?“As much as possible” is a pretty good recommendation.Speaking to Scientific American, professor of psychology and neuroscience Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who co-authored the meta-analysis we mentioned earlier, said people think “you’re at risk if you’re socially isolated, but as long as you have one person, you’re okay.” But truly, the more the merrier, she found in her research. “The greater the extent of the relationships, the lower the [health] risk,” she shared.With that said, we’re all pretty busy, and packing high-school-level hangouts into our daily lives is unrealistic for a lot of adults. Speaking to HuffPost previously, Dr Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, put the amount of time you should catch up with your BFF at a minimum of twice a week. Why twice a week? “The figure of twice a week comes from our findings that this is the amount of time that you typically spend with your closest friends/family,” the psychologist shared.“For both sexes (no surprise), having a large, well-integrated social network has a significant impact on both physical and emotional health. People with larger and/or more integrated networks suffer less illness, recover quicker from surgery, are less likely to die, and even their children are less likely to die.”And if you’re wondering how close those mates should be, the professor said it wasn’t that binary.“In this context, we are talking about people you would willingly invest time to see and make an effort for, the people who will be the first to help you out when things are tough for you,” she advised. Of course, this changes from person to person, and bear in mind that this is a minimum – again, more is often better.Time to crack open my calendar...Related...I Adored My Boyfriend’s Family And Friends. Then We Broke Up And I Wasn't Prepared For What HappenedThere's Probably No 'Safe' Level Of Drinking, Dementia Study FindsThis Is How Optimism Can Help Your Physical And Mental Health

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