Being alone will not shorten your life, isolation is dangerous! Stanford professor reveals how many friends the elderly really need

We often hear that loneliness is bad for health and that elders who live alone should make more friends. Laura L. Carstensen, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, has studied the field of elderly health for many years. She explained common myths and misunderstandings about aging in her book "A Long Bright Future."

Does loneliness really affect lifespan?

An interesting study analyzed various published book autobiographies and found that authors who used more "relative words" (father, mother, friends, us) in their autobiographies lived five years longer on average than authors who used less relative words.

If intimacy really affects overall lifespan, does it also mean that we need to become social experts with many friends? A University of Chicago study of older adults found that those with the worst health outcomes were indeed those who were socially isolated, but not those with few friends.

For people who like to be alone, what causes psychological stress is not the actual size of the social circle, but the brain's subjective assessment of the safety and future direction of the surrounding environment. A small but important social circle will bring more satisfaction and security.

Such a relationship structure may be slightly different from that of extroverts. Extroverts may need more gatherings and activities to gain social energy. However, for people who prefer to be alone, the focus is not on companionship or going out, but on maintaining relationships. Therefore, they often communicate with relatives and friends through email messages rather than making sudden visits or making appointments to go out.

The danger is not being alone, but isolation.

"Loneliness is one person's carnival, and carnival is the loneliness of a group of people." Sometimes even being in a group can make people feel lonely, and even bring stress to the body. Some studies have pointed out that people with strong social networks are indeed less likely to develop dementia, but only if these social relationships are positive. People who have poor relationships with their children have a higher risk of developing dementia than people without children.

In fact, the harm of bad relationships may outweigh the benefits of social connections. Lisa Berkman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard University, said: "The danger is not living alone, but isolation." Interpersonal relationships can produce both positive and negative emotions. The key to happiness is not to be surrounded by many people, but to gain support and recognition from interpersonal interactions.

Advantages of the social model of the elderly

Although the social circle of the elderly is smaller, the quality of their interpersonal relationships is higher than that of young people.

Many relationships we don’t actively choose when we are studying or going out in society, such as colleagues sitting next to us at work, residents in the same community, societies and associations, etc. The reason why you interact with them is probably just because your lives happen to overlap. However, as we grow older, many people will give up their so-called connections, leaving only core relatives and friends in their contact list.

Old people do not seek to expand their social circle, but tend to deepen existing relationships. Even if they are alone for a long time, they usually do not feel anxious. This is not because they dislike others, but because they believe from the bottom of their hearts that they do not need to spend much effort on socializing.

However, the society often views the elderly’s behavior of being alone as a negative and thinks they have difficulty in socializing. However, in fact, the elderly are less likely to suffer from mental health problems (depression, social anxiety disorder) than young people.

The author reminds that children should not force their parents to go to senior citizen activity centers to play bingo or do aerobics with others. This kind of superficial social interaction can sometimes make people feel anxious.

Specifically, how many friends do you need?

The book points out that from the perspective of health and longevity, too few friends may indeed bring risks. For the elderly, it is best not to have less than three friends.

Narrowing the social circle can help us maintain relationships that truly bring satisfaction, but relationships with less than three people are often not stable enough. For example, if you only communicate with your spouse or only keep in touch with a certain friend, this single social bond may break at any time. When the person in the relationship dies or moves, you may face huge shock and pain.

Three friends are just a reference number. Rather than holding on to a certain relationship, it is more important to open your mind in daily life, get to know the people you meet on the journey of life, try various new things, and remain curious and sincere is also the road to happiness.