I'll blast you with facts after facts on why exercise and healthy relationships could just be the key to a better longer life.

Without much ado let's dive right in.

Exercise:

A Taiwanese study examined the medical data of 416,175 people between 1996 and 2008 and 8 years later they followed up with each person to look at the link between exercising and mortality

The finding was that:

People who exercised at least 15 minutes a day had a 14% reduced risk of dying and a 3 year longer life expectancy.Every additional 15 minutes of exercise decreased the risk of dying by an extra 4%

A meta analysis from 2014 found that participants with higher level of physical activity had a

35% reduced risk of cognitive decline.14% reduced risk of dementia.

People who are physically active have a reduced risk of dying during the timeframes investigated in each study.

Relationships:

The 3 main takeaways on relationships:

1. Relationships are fantastic for our health and hence a longer life
   • In 2010 researchers looked across 148 studies involving a total of 308,849 participants and found that on average people with stronger social connections had a 50% increased likelihood of survival for any given year. Study Link
   • A study suggests that married men live 12 years longer on average longer than unmarried men and married women live 7 years longer than unmarried women.
   • A meta analysis from 2016 found that poor social relationships were associated with a 29% increased risk of Heart Disease and a 32% increased risk of Stroke irregardless of gender
   • Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a researcher from the University of Utah, in her meta analysis found that being lonely is as dangerous as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or being obese. Loneliness also makes you more prone to disease.
   • Loneliness here is different from being alone. Loneliness is the subjective experience of being less connected to people than you want to be. So you can be lonely in a crowd while someone who is alone might not be lonely, independent of introversion or extroversion. So loneliness is not about how many people you know or see meaning you might know a lot of people but still be lonelier than someone who knows less people
2. It is the quality of the relationships that matters
3. Relationships protect our brains
   • People who are in secure relationships in their 80s find that their memory stays sharper for longer while people who feel lonely have memories that fade quicker
   • A meta analysis from 2018 found that loneliness increased the risk of dementia
   • A study of retired US adults found that the rate of cognitive decline was 20% higher over 10 years for those who felt lonely

This Study found that:

1. Evaluating the age-loneliness relation revealed that loneliness peaks at age 19 years and exhibits a steady decline into late age.
2. Older age groups report higher levels of satisfaction with their contact with friends as compared to younger aged groups.
3. Research suggests that psychotic disorders peak at age 20, which immediately follows the age at which loneliness peaks

“The possible effect of age on loneliness might act through several mechanisms. Most notably, the socioemotional selectivity theory posits that elderly adults limit their efforts in cultivating relationships to their closest contacts, and thus may be just as fulfilled and feel just as connected, if not more, as younger individuals who might require a high quantity of relationships to achieve the same level of contentment”

People who are more isolated are likely to stay in a fight or flight mode where they have higher levels of circulating cortisol as well as chronic inflammation and hence those things gradually wear body systems which is how chronic stress can predict coronary artery disease, arthritis and type 2 diabetes.

A 2015 study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and others featuring cumulative data from 70 independent prospective studies and 3,407,134 participants tracked for an average of 7 years found that:

1. The objective feeling of loneliness increased the risk of premature death by 26%.
2. The objective measure of social isolation (The amount of time you're actually spending with other people) increased the risk of premature death by 29%.
3. Introverts are more at risk of being socially isolated.