Friends are a source of happiness and well-being and synonymous with sharing in good and bad times. These intimate relationships play an important role in mental health, but we are now learning that they could also have an impact on physical health. This is revealed by a group of international researchers, who establish a direct link between experiences in friendship or love and certain physiological changes.
Tell me if your closest social relationships bring you happiness, I’ll tell you if your blood pressure is high – or not. Although they have not succeeded in establishing an exact causal link between relational experiences and physiological effects, a team of international researchers has highlighted statistical associations between these two phenomena.
To do this, they analyzed data from 4,005 people in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, who were subjected to daily checks via their smartphone or smartwatch. The goal? Provide data regarding their blood pressure, heart rate, stress and coping ability, combined with information about their experiences in friendship and love delivered every three days.