Transcripts

Tom Rath, author of book Vital Friends…

It's really the quality of your connections that matter the most as long as you hit a threshold of let's say three or four close friends or close social connections. That's what seems to provide the maximum protective effect from a health and longevity perspective.

And what is a friend exactly?

We define vital friend as someone who leads you to be happier on a day-to-day basis or leads you to achieve more in life - so those were the two basis criteria that we set out there and looked at. So basically a vital friend is someone who's on average, over time, moving you in a more positive direction. Of course there are a lot of people who we spend time with during the day who are kind of bringing us downhill most of the time and that's a real problem.

Making new friends can be difficult but Tom says pushing yourself to meet new people is almost always worth it.

There was a recent study where they sent extremely introvert people to go bowling - one group went with a group of friends, (close friends) who they've known for a long time and the other group went with a set of complete strangers. And this really surprised me but even the most introvert people reported after the fact that they had more fun when they went with a group of strangers. So, it probably is good to force yourself out of your element a little bit there.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.