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One reason friendship is so vital for health is rather straightforward. Friends, Kim says, are “checking up on people and encouraging people to exercise or eat healthy”. They can also, he says, provide important information, such as “where can I get a flu shot?”
Studies have found that people who are socially isolated produce more cortisol throughout the day, which has been associated with cardiovascular disease and a higher overall mortality risk. “We are social species, we’re just primed to connect to others,” says Oliver Huxhold, developmental psychologist at the German Centre of Gerontology.
Your nose knows friendship
The benefits of face-to-face interactions may be related to smell. When our noses pick up the body odour of other people, for example, we tend to pick up their emotions, too: from anxiety and fear to happiness.
In one experiment, researchers applied electrodes to the faces of volunteers and asked them to sniff samples of sweat of people who had previously watched either happy video (“The Jungle Book”) or neutral videos (the weather forecast.) After inhaling the body odour of cheerful people, the volunteers’ facial muscles twitched in a way that suggested they felt happier, too.
Communication via body odour happens mostly on a subconscious level, and as such it may be sometime more honest than words, says Jasper de Groot, behavioural scientist at Radboud University in the Netherlands and the study’s author. “It may help you empathise with the other person,” he says.
This role of scents in feeling the emotions of others, he says, may help explain why people with more sensitive noses tend to have larger circles of friends and suffer less loneliness – both important predictors of health and longevity. For one study, researchers tested volunteers’ sense of smell with the “Sniffin’ Sticks” test. Using a set of penlike tubes containing various aromas and typically used for olfactory testing, they found that those who had the most sensitive noses also had larger social networks. Brain scans of the volunteers also suggested a link between olfactory sensitivity and social network size.
Smelling the body odour of a loved one can help reduce stress. When European researchers submitted a group of volunteers to weak electric shocks, those who could sniff T-shirts previously worn by their romantic partners stayed calmer – this was reflected by their skin’s electrical conductivity, an indicator of stress. We also sleep better when we can take a whiff of a friendly body odour: simply putting a partner’s used shirt under the pillow causes people to have more restful sleep, an effect comparable to popping a melatonin pill, de Groot says.
Seeing and touching friends makes a difference
When we spend time with friends and relatives face-to-face, we may get on the same brain wave – literally. According to a 2023 study, as soon as we look each other in the eyes, the neural activity in our brains may become synchronised: on an electroencephalography reading of two synchronised brains the lines representing each person’s neural activity fluctuate up and down together. Such neural synchrony has been linked with more kindness toward others, better communication and cooperation. However, if we text or chat over video, neural synchrony between our brains almost disappears.
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A 2024 review found that holding hands, hugs, and other friendly skin-to-skin contact can also help us sleep better, as well as reduce stress. A daily dose of hugs improves the functioning of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the stress pathway. It also lowers the levels of proinflammatory cytokines, molecules involved in the development of diabetes and heart disease. Friendly touch can be a powerful painkiller, too. C-tactile fibres, a type of nerve fibres in human skin, respond to slow, stroking touches by sending signals to the brain that reduce the feelings of pain. Such effects have been found for both painful medical procedures and chronic diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. The relief, research shows, is immediate.
Face-to-face interactions may also influence immune health. One study conducted during the coronavirus pandemic, and based on an analysis of blood samples from 142 adults, revealed that meeting friends in person improves the functioning of genes linked to the immune system. Such benefits, however, didn’t materialise for those who only interacted with their friends online.
And while texting our friends or sending them photos on social media is certainly one way to keep the relationship going, for a deep connection we need more than seeing a friend’s two-dimensional image on a screen. You also need other senses, like smell, de Groot says, even if you don’t realise it. “It makes all the difference,” de Groot says.
Washington Post
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