Good Friends Make Life Healthier: Health and Wellness Blog

This week thousands of us across Iowa walked in the Healthiest State Walk, so we added exercise to the nourishing food we discussed last week.

Blue Zones Project also sent this week some information on the healthy effects of good friends. Did you know that: your friends' friends' friends influence your emotional, social, and physical well-being and impact your healthy behaviors, each unhappy friend decreases your likelihood of happiness by 7 percent, if your friends are obese, you're about twice as likely to be overweight, and friends are better than gold?

Research has found that an increase of $10,000 of income per year improves the likelihood of happiness by just 2 percent. Compare that to a 15 percent boost of happiness as a result of your connection to a happy friend or 6-10 percent lift from someone you may have never met, but to whom you are indirectly tied!

It can be helpful for us to stop and think about how we spend time with our friends. Do we meet up for a walk after work or vent over a drink/chocolate cake? The Blue Zones® Tribe Checkup helps you to take a closer look at which friendships support your well-being.

I just completed this checkup (which I forgot I had pledged to do) and found the results surprising. My friends and I scored within a couple points of each other AND our scores fell in the second to highest category despite our seemingly healthy lifestyles. What a great reminder that I will always have opportunities to improve my health! I have worked with my life coach to focus my time and energy on the positive, healthy people in my life, so I found it bittersweet to know that although I did well, I could do better – surrounding myself with healthy friends and being a healthy friend.

Did you find some room for improvement like I did? For your FREE consultation (in person, over the phone, via email), speaking and training needs, tips, or gift certificates, please contact Jessica Crouch: www.ChooseToImprove.com, Jessica@OrganizeAnywhere.com, 319-504-6689. Remember, reaching a goal with help is better than not reaching it at all: working with busy women who are passionate about making a change in their health because they are “sick and tired” of being sick and tired - mentoring them using natural health & wellness so they can save money and sick days!