
“My extroversion muscles have atrophied while my introversion muscles are bulging,” writes David Brooks in a recent NYTimes column. How true is that?!
My CC college friends (friends for almost 60 years) echoed that same feeling on a Zoom call the other day. But we labeled it “inertia,” and most felt it was a COVID-related issue. It seems that getting back into the post-vaccination socializing groove isn’t coming easily.
A BBC series on Worklife recently posted a helpful article “Why we may have to re-learn to socialise.” (which, oddly, enough is followed up by this article: “Can online sex fill the connection void.” I’ll save that topic for another blog…in hopes that you keep reading! 🙂
Yes, we may want to take it slowly, but we’d better get off our couch (or up from our computer chair) and get back out into the world. It doesn’t take much reading or research to figure out why.

Hot off the press is a UC San Diego School of Medicine study which focuses on loneliness and gut health, as well as wisdom and gut health. I’ve been interested in gut health and food ever since my blog from a while back, so I know that richness and diversity in the gut microbiome is good. But I didn’t realize that gut health may possibly be improved if you’re socially engaged – and not lonely. To quote the researchers: “It is possible that loneliness may result in decreased stability of the gut microbiome and, consequently, reduced resistance and resilience to stress-related disruptions, leading to downstream physiological effects, such as systemic inflammation.”

In 2010 (notably pre-Pandemic) researchers from BYU published an article in PLOS Medicine which analyzes 148 studies (totaling over 308,000 participants of all ages, races, and genders). Their conclusion? Social relationships influence the health outcomes of adults – and lack of social interaction negatively impacts our longevity the same as does smoking, not exercising, drinking too much, and obesity (how many of us in this last year have had little social interaction – AND have been drinking a lot, eating more than we should, and not exercising? How much is that all going to impact our life span? Yikes.)
Maybe the most interesting research on this topic comes from a Harvard study. I’m sure it was the title that caught my attention – “Good genes are nice, but joy is better.” Beginning in 1938, Harvard tracked 268 of their students over an 80-year time period, observing their physical and mental health. The result?
“Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.”
That’s pretty up-beat, don’t you think? We may have little or no control over social class, IQ, or genes, but we sure can work at forming and maintaining close relationships.

Now I tend to think that all Harvard studies must be perfect, but I believe there’s an important caveat here that maybe isn’t addressed adequately. The study followed men. Why? Because there were no women at Harvard when the study began. I discussed that concern about no women participants with my CC sorority-sister friends. And they all agreed – the way men react wouldn’t necessarily predict the way women may react. That said, I’m hoping the study’s findings apply to us women too.

We plan to meet and greet – and, yes, embrace…lots of friends this next year. Andy is hoping to laugh with lots of friends this year – see today’s Andy’s Corner – where Andy will also introduce “The Sunshine Lady.”
There are so many folks we’ve missed…including our Waco/Houston friends who didn’t come to SF this year because the American Sociological Association meeting there was cancelled due to COVID; Sonoma friends who moved to Toronto during the pandemic – and haven’t been able to get back for a visit nor has Canada welcomed visitors there; Boulder friends whom we normally would have seen when we take our biannual trip to visit Colorado and my Fort Collins brother.
In my effort to keep these special social connections active (and my brain brighter), I emailed each of these foodie/friends and asked them to send me a favorite recipe that they’ve been cooking this weird year, and explain why they chose it. The explanations are as special as the recipes: we appreciate the aroma of food; we crave something simple and quick and one that provides more than one meal; most-importantly, we need a dinner with good food and with that necessary social companionship that can help cheer up the gloomiest of days. I’ll embrace that!
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