The Power of Positive People

Are you spending time with the proper people for your health and happiness?

While many folks focus totally on diet and exercise to realize better health, science suggests that our well-being is also influenced by the corporate we keep.

Researchers have found that certain health behaviors appear to be contagious which our social

networks — face to face and online — can influence obesity, anxiety, and overall happiness.

A recent report found that a person’s exercise routine was strongly influenced by his or

her social network.

I was reminded recently of the facility of the gang during a wellness cruise sponsored

by Times Journeys.

The event attracted a gaggle of like-minded travelers who, despite experiencing various levels of adversity in their lives, including cancer, vision loss, and the recent loss of a beloved was remarkably optimistic and upbeat.

The group ranged in age from 17 to 90. One inspiring man, in his 80s, had adopted a vegan lifestyle and a strict exercise routine to regulate his diabetes.

Another new friend, a lady in her 50s who had survived carcinoma, cheered me on and kept me going during a very difficult workout.

After the trip, we all promised to stay in-tuned. Buoyed by the experience, I returned home with a renewed commitment not only to exercise and healthful living, but to easily step-up my social life and spend longer hanging out with happy people.

Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow, and the author has studied the health habits of people who sleep in so-called blue zones — regions of the planet where people live far longer than the typical.

He noted that positive friendships are a standard theme within the blue zones.

“Friends can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors during the way that a diet never can,” Mr. Buettner said.

In Okinawa, Japan, an area where the typical anticipation for ladies is around 90, the oldest within the world, people from a sort of social network called a moai — a gaggle of five friends who offer social, logistic, emotional, and even support for a lifetime.

“It’s a really powerful idea,” Mr. Buettner said. “Traditionally, their parents put them into moais once they are born, and that they take a lifelong journey together.”

In a moai, the group benefits when things go well, like by sharing a bountiful crop, and the group’s families support each other when a toddler gets sick or someone dies. They also appear to influence one another’s lifelong health behaviors.

Mr. Buettner is functioning with federal and state health officials, including the previous United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, to make movies in twenty-four cities around the country.

He recently hung out in Fort Worth, Tex., where several residents have formed walking moais — groups of individuals who meet regularly to steer and socialize.

“We’re finding that in a number of these cities, you'll just put people together who want to change health behaviors and organize them around walking or a plant-based potluck,” he said.

“We nudge them into hanging out together for 10 weeks. we've created moais that are now several years old, and that they are still exerting a healthy influence on members’ lives.”

The key to putting together a successful moai is to start out with people that have similar interests, passions, and values.

The Blue Zone team tries to group people supported geography and work and family schedules to start out. Then they ask them a series of inquiries to find common interests.

Is your perfect vacation a cruise or a backpacking trip? does one like rock ’n’ roll or classical music? does one subscribe to The NY Times or The Wall Street Journal?

“You stack the deck in favor of a long-term relationship,” said Mr. Buettner.

One of my fellow travelers, Carol Auerbach of the latest York The city noted that surrounding herself with positive people has helped her deal with the loss of two husbands over the years. Ms. Auerbach was widowed at 30 when her children were just 2 and 5.

With the support of her family and friends, and her own tenacity, she was ready to support her family, and she or he eventually remarried. then in 1992, her second husband died unexpectedly.

To cope the second time, she focused on volunteer work and contributing to her community.

Ms. Auerbach said she believes that she learned to possess a positive outlook from her mother, a Holocaust survivor who left Germany at the age of 19 and never saw her parents again.

“When I used to be growing up we weren't affluent, and therefore the four folks lived during a one-bedroom apartment and my parents slept on a pullout sofa,” she said.

“My mother never complained. I feel she quietly knew those difficult things happen, but you are feeling very appreciative of the life you are doing have, and you are feeling a responsibility to form the foremost of it.”

Ms. Auerbach eventually found love again and has been married to her third husband for 15 years. “Life is just too short to be around negative people,” she said.

“I need people around me who care about me and are appreciative and see the planet as a glass half full, not half empty.”

The Blue Zone team has created a quiz to assist people assess the positive impact of their own social network.

The quiz asks questions about your friends and therefore the state of their health, what proportion they drink, eat and exercise, also as their outlook.

The goal of the quiz isn't to dump your less healthy friends but to spot the people in your life who score the very best and to spend longer with them.

“I argue that the foremost powerful thing you'll do to feature healthy years is to curate your the immediate social network,”

said Mr. Buettner, who advises people to specialize in three to five real-world friends instead of distant Facebook friends.

“In general you would like friends with whom you'll have a meaningful conversation,” he said.

“You can call them on a bad day and that they will care.

Your group of friends is better than any drug or anti-aging supplement, and can do more for you than simply about anything.”