Secret of Extending Life

Want Longevity??? Make friends!!

Making friends was believed to prolong life. How?

Age is in the hands of God. But God has given man & woman the knowledge of having prolong life. One of them is by making friends & stay in touch by visiting each other.

Stay in touch is actually connecting kinship that has been broken up with full awareness and humility. But in practice, the context of the relationship can now be interpreted to establish friendship /companionship.

Extensive network of friendships that turned out to be more beneficial prolong, rather than with his own relatives. According to research from the Centre for Ageing Studies, Flinders University of Adelaide, Australia. Research conducted during a decade of the elderly aged over 70 yr reply.

Research called the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aeging (ALSA) started in Adelaide in 1992, involving about 1,500 elderly. The elderly were interviewed about : How often they had contact in socializing? Social contacts here include contact with families, relatives & friends. Each group of respondents is monitored each year, for 4 full years. Research results showed that respondents with more friends turned out to be long-lived.

What makes a friendship could extend life? ''Friendship make people continue to feel young. This is the enacting body of people who love to make friends is always a healthy & fit'', said Lynn Giles, one of the ALSA researcher.

According to researchers from the University of California Berkeley, talking to a good friend helps us cope with stress. As we all know stress can trigger & aggravate diseases like asthma, diabetes, arthritis, digestive disorders, viral infections, cancer & heart attack. These diseases are very effective ''age shortening'' & make a person look older than his/her age.

Dr. Redford B. Williams, MD, director of The Behavioral Medicine Research Center & psychiatrist at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA, along with his team examined 1368 heart patients for 9 years. They found that the situation of marriage & friendship that patients did, could actually be used as a tool forecasters of who will die & who's going to survive after suffering a heart attack. ''Patients without a partner or friend, will potentially die three times faster than those who had a wife or friends'', said Dr. Williams.

Social Starting Tips

Arthur Wassmer, Ph.D., psychologist & author of ''Making Contact'' gives tips for you who find it difficult to start a friendship :

• Break the ice. For example ask : ''How do you do?'', ''Where are you come from?'', or ''Do you enjoy the show?''.
• Be an active listener. God Gives Us 2 ears & one mouth so that we're able to listen more than to talk.
• Do not be shy to ask. Suppose you were asked, ''How do you do?''. You do not be shy to ask, for example : ''Good. How about yourself?, Coming alone?''.
• Express your feelings.
• Do not be stingy to give a compliment.
• Express your body language when speaking. Smiling, eye contact, touch lightly on the shoulder/arm, nodded, crossing his arms across his chest/arms, etc..
• Give Surprise. For example by giving a gift at a time. This applies also for your partner, for making better romantic relationships.