Relationships Interpersonal

What do we mean by “social connection” or “social connectedness”?

In the broadest sense, it means interacting with other people, such as friends or relatives.

These connections will not be the same in every respect for any two people, although ideally these connections should generate a similar sense of openness, generosity, and goodwill. Although they take work, good relationships are one of our greatest blessings. Is there anyone who really cares for you, or feels close to you, or loves you, or wants to help you? Is there someone you can confide in? If so, then according to some studies, you may have three to five times lower risk of premature death and disease from all causes than those who don’t have these kinds of relationships.1

Perhaps the best known example of the link between social connectedness and health has been seen in Dr. Dean Ornish’s intervention for reversing heart disease. When most people think of this program, they tend to think of low-fat diets, exercise, and meditation. But if you ask Dr. Ornish about the most important part of his program, his answer might surprise you, because he identifies it as interpersonal relationships. Dr. Dean Ornish, in his book Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, writes that “I’m not aware of any other factor in medicine – not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery – that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and the premature death from all causes than does love and intimacy.” Jeff Levin, epidemiologist, puts it this way, “…experts have singled out love as foremost among the human emotions capable of promoting and maintaining health and achieving healing.” Dr. Bernie Siegel, Yale physician and author of the best-selling book, Love, Medicine and Miracles, affirms the power of love: “Unconditional love is the most powerful stimulant of the immune system. The truth is love heals.” Dr. Siegel works with cancer patients to help them experience the blessings of love and other positive emotions.

Social support is probably one of the least focused on areas of health, and yet it has one of the most powerful influences. It can come in the form of a spouse, a close-knit family, a network of friends, a church, or other group affiliations. Even a connection to animals can have a powerful, positive effect on one’s well-being. The link between social support and health is very strong. “So many studies have supported this powerful link that it has been given a name – the Roseto effect.” The name comes from a study that spanned fifty years in the little town of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Researchers discovered that the incidence of coronary heart disease in Roseto at the beginning of the period was about half that of the two neighboring towns, despite the same risk factors in all three locations.

What was the difference? Researchers discovered that Roseto was settled by a tightly knit group of religious immigrants from Southern Italy. During the first thirty years of the study, they were characterized by a high level of social connectedness: extensive intermarriage, strong family ties, and a supportive, nurturing community. The researchers hypothesized that this high level of social connectedness might buffer residents from heart disease and early death. This was shown to be true when, in the 1960s and 1970s, the cohesiveness of the community began to weaken and the heart disease rates in Roseto climbed to the same levels as those in the other two communities.

Drs. Syme and Berkman have co-authored what many consider to be the definitive study on social support and the risk of death. The Alameda County Study is one of the most quoted studies in the field of health. “Statistically, under the topic of social support, this is one of the strongest areas under study,” says Dr. Syme, professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the leading experts on relationships. This study, which dealt with more than seven thousand people followed for 40 years, showed:

• People classified as lonely and isolated had three times higher mortality rates.

• People with many social contacts had the lowest mortality rates.

• The amount of social support was the best predictor of good health.

In this study, the association between social and community ties and premature death was found to be independent of the more powerful predictors of health and longevity: age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, self-reported physical health status and health practices, i.e., smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption,overeating, physical activity, and utilization of preventive health services. Those who lacked social ties had an increased risk of dying from coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, and all other causes of death. Many other large-scale studies have replicated and confirmed the results from the

Alameda research. Each gives additional valuable information regarding the effects of social connectedness on the quality and length of our lives. The data gathered in these studies includes all different types of populations (tens of thousands of participants) and many different countries.

More friends can mean fewer illnesses. An interesting study illustrates how connecting with other people can boost our immune system. Volunteers were given nasal drops containing rhinovirus – the virus that causes the common cold. Almost all of the people exposed to the rhinovirus were infected by it, but those with more friends were less likely to develop signs and symptoms of a cold. Another study involving elderly people showed increased immune function in terms of both natural killer cells and antibodies after weekly visitations by friends or relatives. Lack of connection has been found to reduce suppressor T-cells and is associated with recurrence of some illnesses. Researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicine found that women who perceived their marriages as satisfying and supportive had better immune defenses (higher % T-cells, and more helper lymphocytes) as well as less depression and loneliness. On the other hand, negative social interactions can weaken the important functions of the immune system. The immune system is less effective when one is in conflict with a spouse or companion, even when one is otherwise happy.

Touch is one of the most basic expressions of social connectedness. Hundreds of studies over the past forty years have helped us better understand the powerful effects of physical touch. In one study in which tactile/kinesthetic stimulation was given to preterm babies, researchers found that touch was very powerful. The touching or stimulation consisted of body stroking and passive movements of the limbs for three fifteen-minute periods per day for ten days. The touched-and-moved babies averaged a 47% greater weight gain per day. They were also more active and alert during sleep/wake behavior observations. Finally, those babies who had human touch and movement had a hospital stay six days shorter than those who weren’t touched in the same manner, which yielded a cost savings of approximately $3,000 per baby!

Interestingly enough, observations made by researchers decades ago as they watched groups of monkeys provided additional information on the power of touch. University of Wisconsin researchers Harry and Margaret Harlow compared monkeys who were raised together in cages with monkeys whose only social contact came through seeing, hearing, and smelling other monkeys. The Harlows found that the monkeys who did not have touch or actual body contact with other monkeys grew up with a variety of emotional abnormalities. As these monkeys grew older, early self-aggression turned into aggression against other monkeys. Perhaps most striking was the example of how mothers behaved with their young. Mothers who grew up without touch showed less warmth and affection toward their offspring; some were actually hysically abusive to their babies.

Many years ago a now famous research study was done at an orphanage. The researchers wondered why at that particular orphanage the children were living, while at the other ones children seemed more likely to die. They found that the assistant at the orphanage where the children weren’t dying simply hugged and held the children!

Touch is very important to our health, and it doesn’t have to be dramatic or uncomfortable to make a difference. An unusual study was conducted in a university library. As they left the library, students were stopped and asked how satisfied they were with the service they had received. What the studentsdidn’t know was that the study wasn’t about the library – it was about touch. The library clerk had received specific instructions that half the people checking out were to have their hands touched as they got their cards back. They were touched just lightly, almost imperceptibly. But, however casual and meaningless this contact may have seemed, the researchers found that the students who had been touched had much higher opinions of the library service than those who were not touched.

A qualitative synthesis of over 100 resiliencyrelated studies revealed that resilient children tend to have all of the following factors, which are related to social connection: good social skills and support from mentors or peers; a close connection to family; and a caring relationship with a caregiver. Aside from these, resilient children have positive self-esteem, a good sense of the future, and clear expectations and achievement in school. The scientific evidence of how connectedness protects also shows up in the growing body of research on adolescents. In 1997, a massive capstone study was launched, collecting data from ninety thousand teens and eighteen thousand of their parents across the United States. The one word that encapsulates all this research is connectedness. In short, kids who feel connected to family, church, school, and community are far less likely to participate in risky behaviors than those who don’t have tight connections.

Last, in the longest continuous study in the world on aging, Dr. George Vaillant and colleagues found that a warm relationship with our spouse is an excellent predictor of aging well. The fact that social connection is an excellent predictor of healthy aging has been well supported in many other studies. In one study, a team of researchers found that over 2,800 Dutch citizens, ages fifty-five to eighty-five, were positively affected by loving relationships. Specifically, they found that those who perceived themselves as being surrounded by a loving, supportive circle of friends decreased their death rate by approximately half when compared with those who did not feel the close