What are the Effects of Social Connectedness and Friendship on Your Immune System?
For most of us, family gatherings, participating in special community activities, and getting together with friends are opportunities to stay in touch and check-in with each other. This social connectedness also provides us with a chance to exchange ideas and lend social support.
Friendship doesn’t only give us joy, but it also influences our health in various ways.
Friendship, connectedness, and socializing within your community have also been found to produce a positive influence on your immune system. Connectedness is considered as powerful and effective as a good diet, adequate sleep, and exercising.
Let us explore further the benefits of connectedness and its effect on your immune system.
How Does Social Connectedness and Friendship Improve Your Immune System?
Social Connectedness Relieves Stress
Socializing triggers the release of feel-good hormones that can regulate immune system functions.
Scientists investigating the behavioral and biological factors accounting for the benefits of socializing have revealed interesting results.
It was proven that friendship and being connected to each other through community programs can help to relieve stress.
This, in turn, would minimize the adverse influence of poor mental health on your immune system as well as gut functions, coronary arteries, and insulin production.
It also suggests that socializing allows you to receive love and care from your friends and relatives. This would trigger the release of feel-good hormones that can regulate immune system functions.
This marks the need for being socially active to improve your mental health, prevent stress, and boost your immunity.
Social Connectedness Reduces Inflammation
Friendships strengthen and regulate your immune system by influencing the genes that code for inflammation and the activities of immune cells.
It may seem intriguing to hear that healthy socializing can help to control inflammation in the body.
A sense of social connectedness would work as a detriment to the development of common health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, and smoking, all of which are linked to chronic inflammation.
Social connectedness would strengthen and regulate your immune system by influencing the genes that code for inflammation and the activities of immune cells. This would help you recover from chronic diseases in a shorter period and even increase your lifespan.
A parallel line of research work has also indicated that social rejection could be damaging to the physical and psychological well-being of a person. It may affect the biologically plausible pathways linked to the immune system and inflammation thereby contributing to the development of disorders.
Social Connectedness Strengthens Immunity
A sense of social connectedness may help prevent the development of common health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, and smoking.
It has been found that support and care from friends and family can improve your tolerance to pain and stress. It would produce an adaptogenic effect thereby creating a favorable balance of hormones in your nervous system. This effect of friendship and connectedness has been linked to improved physical health and stronger immunity.
On the other hand, social isolation marked by disengagement from institutional connections, social ties, or community participation may weaken your immune system.
The findings of these research studies have provided clues as to why it is important to be socially active and have healthy personal relationships with your family, relatives, and friends.
It is also important to attend community events so that you can meet people from different strata of society or with different thought processes. It would widen your horizons and allow you to incorporate and accept varying ideologies. This may also improve your perspective on issues that create mental stress or cause confusion in thinking and thus, enhance mental clarity.
These favorable changes in your emotional health would reflect on your physical health in a positive way. Being more receptive to others would strengthen your immune system and regulate the activities of the immune cells against harmful pathogens. It may also boost the response of your immune system against bacteria and viruses and protect you against common infective disorders.
These research studies have revealed the importance of friendships and social connectedness in view of supporting your immune system functions. The health benefit of socializing can be improved further by using immunity-modulating supplements like BioPro-Plus.
BioPro-Plus is formulated keeping in mind the need to correct the common immunological dysfunctions in order to restore the optimum functioning of all organs. Regular use of this immune support supplement is highly recommended to help fight infections, reduce inflammation, and avoid common mental and physical disorders.
Read More:
Immunity friendships: How to maintain social connections today
Behind the Mind-Body Dilemma: How Your Immune System Influences Your Mental Health?