Your friendships are good for your health (science agrees)

Ubuntu: Your Friendships Are Good for Your Health

Just emailing from Bali airport after a wonderful gathering of friends I've known since high school, celebrating our collective fiftieth. It was so good to have so much time to really catch up on what's happening in all our lives. We kept saying — why don't we do this more often?

Turns out, there's actually science behind that feeling. An 85-year Harvard study found one thing above everything else predicts how long and how well we live: the quality of our relationships. More than our cholesterol. More than our fitness.

As Dr Robert Waldinger, who leads the study, puts it: "Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too."

Even more reason to organise that catch-up! Call that friend!

And here's something worth knowing: just hearing a friend's voice — actually talking, not texting — releases oxytocin, your bonding hormone, and lowers cortisol, your stress hormone. Seeing their face on a video call does even more. Your nervous system knows the difference.

This week in class, we're exploring the theme of Gathering. In Sanskrit, community is called sangha — and I think we have a genuinely beautiful one. Those little chats before class, moving and resting together each week — that's sangha. And it matters more than we know.

Come to Flow to Restore

Big love, Em x