You’ve probably heard of Bryan Johnson, the vampire-pale, eerily smooth-skinned tech centimillionaire on a quest to live forever. Mainly, the 48-year-old’s noble crusade involves strict adherence to an eye-poppingly complicated nutrition and health regime, which at one point included getting plasma infusions from his 17-year-old son. (In a YouTube video documenting the process, he mused: “Will my son’s blood make me younger?”)
It’s estimated that Johnson spends up to $2m a year on various exotic supplements, medical-grade doo-dads and experimental rejuvenation techniques, all with the goal of reducing his biological age to that of a much younger man.
Someone should tell Johnson that researchers may have unlocked the elixir of life – and it’s got nothing to do with turning your child into a human-sized IV drip. It’s friendship.
According to a new US study of more than 2,000 people, those with stronger social connections age slower and have lower levels of systemic inflammation, a risk factor for serious illnesses like diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Scientists created a metric called cumulative social advantage (CSA), which measured participants’ access to social relationships in a number of ways, including family relationships and friendship support. Higher scores of CSA were “significantly linked to slower biological ageing”. If you want to stay young, the answer is clear – invest in your friends and family.
None of this is rocket science. We already know that people with strong social ties tend to live longer and stay healthier, but human connection is often the first to go in our increasingly hectic lives. At some point in the last decade, we replaced Fomo with Jomo, aka the joy of missing out. Initially imagined as a way to opt out of the soul-crushing demands of keeping up with the Joneses, it is now a byword for deliberate social exclusion.
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Therapeutic concepts like setting your boundaries and online buzzwords like “protecting your peace” were flattened into excuses to absolve yourself of social demands under the guise of prioritising your own mental wellbeing. Don’t feel like leaving the house for a friend’s birthday? Cancel last minute; you need to put yourself first. A mate in a huff with you? Conserve your energy and ignore their toxic texts. One of the saddest posts I have ever seen on X is one that simply reads: “Decentering friendship saved my life this year.”
Technology now enables these reclusive impulses, too. That little shiny brick in our pockets lets us outsource human interaction from the mundane to the most intimate aspects of our existence. Want to pick up a flat white from a cafe without speaking to a barista? There’s an app for that. Want to divulge your innermost secrets and get emotional support from an AI? There’s an app for that, too. (Just make sure you don’t fall in love with your chatbot, or you might be left heartbroken after the latest OpenAI update.)
Of course, everyone knows that making new friends is tough, particularly once you leave behind the social environments of your school and uni years. One study found that the number of our friends peaks when we turn 25 and then decreases from there. But it’s not impossible – and I can say this with some authority. In my thirties, I suddenly found myself miraculously blessed with a rapidly enlarging social circle. Now that I’m 37, this makes me something of an outlier – only about a third of people aged 30 to 49 say they have five or more close friends, according to Pew Research Centre data.
How did I buck that trend? I don’t have all the answers, but I suspect finding my queer community helped. In my late twenties, I fell in with a sprawling network of LGBTQ+ people and their associates. I’d meet new besties at after-parties and in smoking areas and get added to their group chat. From there, I was invited to birthdays, supper clubs, festivals, random nights out – you name it. It wasn’t all luck: I tried my best to nurture these baby tendrils of friendship by making an effort to suggest hangouts. In fact, I’m cooking dinner for some new mates in a few weeks’ time, most of whom I’ve only met in the last five or six years.
Do I look younger or feel younger? Not on a Sunday, when I’m recovering from the night before, but I do know that my life has been enriched immeasurably from these relationships. Now, I’m not suggesting everyone needs to acquire a new friendship group wholesale. But if you’re wondering if there’s any benefit to forcing yourself to attend your friends’ pre-drinks – or make an effort to go to an old schoolmate’s wedding – you should tell yourself that it’ll literally help to keep you young, no blood transfusion required.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
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