I'm A 102-Year-Old MD: This Is My #1 Secret To Healthy Aging

On a fundamental level, we’re all connected. It’s easy to forget this and see ourselves as separate beings. After all, I’m me, wrapped in my own skin, and there you are, wrapped in yours. Yet we are social creatures, and we depend on one another to survive. No matter how hard we may try to separate ourselves, we are part of a community, for better or worse.

Yet a true sense of community seems rare in our modern age. Even before the pandemic, many media reports were noting that we are experiencing a crisis of loneliness. Loneliness has been identified as a problem in numerous countries and across a range of demographics.

This sense of disconnection wreaks havoc on the body. One study at Brigham Young University showed that feeling lonely has the same effect on longevity as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Poor social relationships have been associated with a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32% increase in risk of stroke.

At the same time, the data show that positive social connections help us thrive. The author Ashton Applewhite has noted that social connection is a main indicator of happy and healthy aging. She also recommends multigenerational friendships, an idea that is echoed by numerous studies showing the positive effects being around small children has on older people facing questions of purpose.1

We are happiest and healthiest when we are contributing to and drawing from our collective life force. This idea is the basis of my fourth secret of longevity: You are never truly alone. Connecting with community amplifies our individual life force by realigning it with the collective life force.

I’ve seen thriving communities all over this globe. I’ve noticed the greatest sense of community joy in groups of people who are working together, even—or perhaps especially—in the face of great struggles.

We are social beings; we are meant to be together. This is how we thrive. Though many of us know this on an intellectual level, it’s becoming harder and harder to put into practice.

The United States (as well as much of the world) is splitting down ideological lines. Family members are unable to connect with one another, opting to spend holidays and celebratory events in their separate corners. More and more marriages end in divorce. Our houses and yards get bigger as we retreat into our individual electronic devices. The more we have, the more we spend time apart. Even if we want to connect, at least theoretically, it feels as if it’s too hard to get our needs met. Perhaps we’ve even forgotten how to do so.