I’m sure we all know by now how special our frienships are, but did you know they are the key to greater health and wellness?
Yes, it’s true. Studies show that having a positve support system around you when you’re pursuing optimum health and wellness actually increases your likelihood of sticking to new healthy habits and behaviours. PLUS, it reduces stress, increases energy and improves your relationship!
Don't panic - exercising with friends doesn't mean you have to wear matching workout outfits!
Why is this? Well, it’s largely because to make a significant change in our lives we need to change our mindset, attitude and behaviour first and a positive, strong support system can be a hugely helpful tool in making that happen. And chances are, that what you’re struggling with is something they’re struggling with too, or have struggled with in the past, so you can actually support each other. It doesn’t have to be a one way deal.
Friendship is such a powerful tool and it can be a negative influence just as much as a postive one. For example, in 2003, Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist, and James Fowler, a political scientist, researched how relaitonships directly influence behaviour and therefore health and happiness.
Their study found that behaviours, either positive or negative, are highly influenced by the people around you. For example, when they looked at the growing rate of obseity, this is what they found:
- Obesity radiates outwards from clusters of overweight people
- Having an obese spouse raises the risk of becoming obese by 37%; but, if a friend becomes obese the risk skyrockets by a shocking 171%!!! Yikes!
- Lean individuals surrounded by obesity were rare.
Don’t worry though, there were also some positive findings. Christakis and Fowler found that happy people have happy friends and each happy friend increased a person’s probability of being happy by 9%!
The simple conclusions is, people need people! So if you’re trying to make some positive changes in your fitness, health and wellbeing (or even some other area of your life), gather your friends around you as a support team and I’m sure you will reach your goals much more easily than if you try to go it alone.
