Friendship Boosts Your Brain

We know that being lonely is bad for your emotional health, but it can also have a physical effect on the size of your brain. According to a new study, people with the fewest social contacts had smaller brains, while people who had the most connections had larger ones. One of the lead researchers wrote, “Social isolation has been associated with … premature mortality, increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, increased reporting of depressive symptoms, as well as increased dementia risk.”