the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, loneliness is more than just a passing feeling; it’s a serious public health issue with a significant impact on both mental and physical well-being. A new study has revealed an alarming reality for the Garden State: over 551,000 New Jersey residents are living in a state of constant, chronic loneliness.
by Paul Gallagher
Having a small social network is as bad for your health as smoking, according to a new study. Researchers from Yale University showed that a person’s position in the social network is associated with blood markers of stress. They discovered that the more people who would call you a friend the lower the levels of fibrinogen, a predictor of heart attack and stroke, in your blood. However, reeling off a long list of those we consider friends does not have the same effect. The number of friends and relatives named by an individual, reflecting the perceived social network, is only weakly related to fibrinogen levels. The association between social isolation and fibrinogen is comparable to the effect of smoking, and greater than that of low education, a conventional measure of socioeconomic disadvantage, the scientists said. What matters is how others see us, not how we see them.
Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/health/social-network-isolation-stress-levels-smoking/
