Create connections and find your community.
The Equinox Longevity Assessment is a nine-part series designed to provide members with evidence-based tools to measure and benchmark their fitness age, and provide training guidance to optimize performance. Developed with Michael Crandall, CSCS, a Tier X Coach at Equinox, the full program can be accessed here.
Social fitness should be just as big of a priority as physical fitness in your longevity roadmap. Humans are naturally social. But the modern digital era has made it easy to live behind a screen and fall into patterns of isolation, to the point that loneliness has emerged as a U.S. public health crisis.
According to the National Institute on Aging, the health risks of prolonged isolation are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Social isolation and loneliness have even been estimated to shorten a person’s life span by as many as 15 years. The risks are comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality, such as alcohol consumption and smoking, and exceed the influence of other risk factors like physical inactivity and obesity.
When you look at the world’s Blue Zones — geographical pockets where citizens are up to 10 times more likely to live to be 100 than in the United States — one of the commonalities is that people enjoy strong family and community ties. National Geographic writer Dan Buettner’s groundbreaking study on the world’s five Blue Zones has been distilled to nine shared traits which he calls the Power 9 Principles. Three of the nine common healthy lifestyle habits he observed fall under the category of connection.
Buettner found centenarians spent a lot of time and effort working on relationships with their spouses and children. People in Blue Zones tend to belong to a faith-based community, and those who attend a faith-based service live four to 14 years longer than their counterparts who do not. And the world’s longest-lived people curate social circles around themselves that support healthy behaviors.
Positive relationships also keep us happier. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest studies of adult life, established a strong correlation between deep relationships and well-being. And a study published in Social Science & Medicine observed nearly 33,000 individuals over a 30-year period and found that happy people live longer. Compared to very happy people, the risk of death over the follow-up period was six percent higher among those who were pretty happy and 14 percent higher among those who were not happy.
Action Plan
When you’re in good physical health, it’s easier to get out and flex your social fitness, whether it’s on the golf course, with your running club, or at a restaurant with friends. The two go hand in hand. Equinox Clubs offer a multitude of ways that allow you to foster both, from group fitness classes to Club events.