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Survival Of The Friendliest: How Our Close Friendships Help Us Thrive

Lydia Denworth wants you to make more time for your friends.

We don't fully appreciate our friendships, says the science writer and author of the new book Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond. If we did, we'd take cultivating those intimate bonds as seriously as working out or eating well. Because, she writes, a new field of science is revealing that social connections play a vital role in our health.

On average, people have only four very close relationships, Denworth finds, and very few people can sustain more than six. But the effect of these few core relationships extends beyond our social lives, influencing our health on…

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Articles of Interest

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Resources

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From the day children first step out onto the playground, friendships are a key part of life. According to Gallup polling data from 2004, 98 percent of Americans report having at least one close friend (the average number of friends is nine).