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Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond

by Lydia Denworth (Goodreads Author)

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John said: " Always assume the form of my mother's adult socializing was largely cultural-a product of the middle class, Urban professional world in which my parents operated. My husband's experience was different
And yet, over the last decade, scientists have di Always assume the form of my mother's adult socializing was largely cultural-a product of the middle class, Urban professional world in which my parents operated. My husband's experience was different
And yet, over the last decade, scientists have discovered that there is a kernel of Truth to my joke about my mother's genetic wiring. There is a biology to being social that includes genes. Dinner parties as a way of socializing May owe something to socioeconomics in Western tradition, but the underline and enjoyment of other people does not, at least not entirely. A tendency towards sociability is inheritable, passed from generation to generation. And that confirms that friendship - born of a drive to connect and form strong bonds-is a product of evolution because genes are the field of which natural selection plays
The last 20 years have brought a far more sophisticated understanding of the way genes and environment interact, I feel of inquiry known as epigenetics

Adam Smith was among the first to name "fellow feeling"-The sensation that something you see happening to another person is happening to you as well. The Germans call it Einfuhlung, meaning "falling into"

University, who's 2010 meta analysis of more than 300,000 people revealed the critical fact that social connection decreases risk of mortality by 50%, has spent several years working on a similar analysis of the intervention programs that have been established so far. Tell her frustration, there's no clear story emerging about what works and what doesn't

Holt-Lunstad "habits we form early on have chronic effects over time and we often don't see the effects of them until we're older." She is calling for consensus guidelines, just as there are for nutrition, exercise, and sleep. And her imagination, there could be an app that buzzes you when you haven't called your mom in a while. Or in the same way that we make a trip in our schedules to exercise, we might need to make time in our schedules to see friends

Berkman agrees that in many cases, attention is being paid to relationships far too late. She reiterates just how hard it is to change behaviors that have existed for decades. "It's not very difficult from smoking. If you start smoking when you're 14 and stop smoking when you're 65 come in many ways, the damage is done," she points out. "It's not undoable. Stopping does make some things better. It's worth doing but it's very late in the game." Very few people ever consider social relationships in the same frame as smoking. They should, says Berkman. "What you want to be thinking about is what to do in early life, or midlife or during your working years that would really help me maintain the kinds of relationships that we think are so important. That's where our work has been leading us"
In search of clues for what promotes longevity, scientists and their media have explored the so called Blue zones-exceptional spots around the world where more people live to be a hundred than anywhere else. Social integration and connection feature prominently in those areas. When psychologist and author Susan Pinker visited one Blue zone, it's Sardinian mountain village, she found that social isolation was an impossibility. "Every centurion we met was surrounded by a tight web of kith and kin," she writes in the village effect and then goes on to describe one woman in particular. "Zia Teresa at 100 was what she had always been: a great gorgeous woman with many friends, relations and neighbors, all of whom popped and regularly to visit and chat, all the while boosting her importance their lives, and her place in the community" they found that geographical proximity to close friends and family is what really matters. And Nicholas Christakis and colleagues from his early days at Harvard found that widows and widowers who chose to live in neighborhoods full of other widows in widowers live longer

If something has the power to change the way our immune systems work, to increase or decrease the surges of neurotransmitters in our brains, to extend or cut short our lives, then it must be dealt with as such
"People view relationships is something that is personal and emotional, not so related to the body." She has made a point of trying to get her work published in top medical journals, not just psychological journals, but she wants health professionals to hear her message. And a call to arms paper in 2017, she declared that America health organizations have been slow to recognize the substantial evidence that has piled up showing that social connection reduces mortality, while a lack of it significantly increases risk, even more than the other issues that do rate attention and resources, such as obesity and air pollution
Anyone who grew up in the military family, like my friend stephanie, can appreciate the importance of policy makers bring some awareness of the need for social bonds to their thinking. Stephanie attended at least 10 schools before college and moved more times than that, sometimes in the middle of a school year. Her childhood was one long stretch of being the new kid with no lasting relationships
Another kind of example comes from the healthcare system, which must acknowledge the possibility that friends can provide meaningful support to patients
""Study after study reported significant differences in treatment rates between married and unmarried patients,"
Lack of social context among other adults cause Medicare 6.7 billion a year, mostly from spending on nursing facilities and hospitalization for those with no network

In total, 724 men or filed for their lifetimes over more than 75 years
Quality matters as much or more than quantity, "conflict is bad for your health, good warm friendships are protective," Waldinger said. And here's where the harvest study really adds to the story. They took the men who lived into the '80s and look back to the data from the middle of their lives to see whether it would predict "who's going to live to be a happy, healthy octogenarian and who was not." Waldinger and his team gathered everything they knew about the men at age 50. "It wasn't their middle-aged cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old. It was how satisfied they were in the relationships. The people most satisfied at 50 were the healthiest at age 80. Good close relationships seem to buffer them from the slings and arrows of getting old." Those relationships even made physical pain more bearable
Third lesson is that good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. Those who were securely attached to another person in their 80s State cognitively sharper for longer. "Those relationships don't have to be smooth all the time," Waldinger stressed. "They could bigger day in and day out, but as long as they felt they could count on each other when they're going got tough, those arguments didn't take a toll on their memories"
Humans like a quick fix. "Relationships are messy and complicated, the hard work of tending to family or friends is not sexy or glamorous. It's also long. It never ends." The people in his study were who were happiest and retirement had worked at it. They valued intended to their relationships. They actively worked to replace coworkers with new playmates. They put in the time
The lesson first all can be even simpler than Waldinger's three points. It's to take all this gratefully gathered information on how deeply wired we are for connection and then, as Steve Cole likes to say: "plan your day accordingly" ...more "

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(page 102 of 312)
"Sexually hard to drive animals and other humans of play. If you manage that trick, however come with the animals become aggressive. And people come a lack of play or abnormal play in childhood is often a sign of a neurological disease or disorder like psychopathy. Prisoners on death row had a noticeable absence of play" — Sep 09, 2026 08:33PM

Sep 15, 2026 12:38PM · see review

John is currently reading

Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation

by Alan Burdick (Goodreads Author)

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(page 24 of 320)
"psychologists cal it temporal orientation & it's the hallmark of what one might call an adult sense of time; the ability to know time, day, year without turning to a clock or calendar. numerous studies have attempted to understand how we achieve this orientation" — Oct 02, 2024 08:38PM

Sep 26, 2024 10:49AM

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The Iguana Den's Care and Keeping of Giant Green Iguanas

by Meredith Martin (Goodreads Author)

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(page 55 of 210)
"all cost iguana $990 male $1110 female
healthy females have 35 to 80 eggs" — Jan 03, 2024 06:59AM

Dec 27, 2023 10:57AM

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John’s Quotes

“Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present.”
― Lionel Shriver, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047

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“‎When you point your finger at someone, anyone, it is often a moment of judgement. We point our fingers when we want to scold someone, point out what they have done wrong. But each time we point, we simultaneously point three fingers back at ourselves.”
― Christopher Pike, Evil Thirst

tags: thirst-volume-2

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“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
― Mark Twain

tags: actions, deeds

630 likes

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett

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“We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a, cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. We feel that you are much safer as you are. The present state of affairs suits us, and we are not going to take the risk of setting you free, even by an extra hour a day. So, dear brothers, since evidently you must sweat to pay for our trips to Italy, sweat and be damned to you.”
― George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

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