Page 46 - August Life In Naples Magazine

doctor’s corner

FRIENDSHIP

by Allen Weiss, MD, MBA, FACP, FACR
President and CEO, NCH Healthcare System
“F riendship improves happiness and abates with members specializing in various activities necessary

misery by the doubling of our joy and the
for survival. Hunting buddies would be safer and more
dividing of our grief,” declared Marcus Tullius
effective going after bigger game. Survival from the elements
Cicero, Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer,
sturdier shelters.
political theorist, and constitutionalist. Cicero lived before improved as friends came together to build bigger, better, and
the Christian era and was widely considered one of Rome’s Early in America groups cooperated to share books,
greatest orators and prose stylists. forming what we now enjoy as the public library system.
Today, Carlin Flora, in her book Friendfluence, the Surprising Volunteer firemen formed a mutual protection society to
Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are, shares the modern version limit the damage from the spread of fires. These two groups
of the above quote regarding the importance of friends. of people started with friendships which were informal at
Surprisingly, many current studies show that friendship is good first, then developing into defined relationships. In each of
not only for one’s mood but also for one’s health. In addition to these examples, the interaction among people with a common
commonly known benefits, solid friendships help people lose interest helped everyone. People with friends had a survival
weight, improve mood, get into shape, be more productive at advantage, thus reinforcing this salutary behavior in peers as
work, and not start or restart smoking. well as descendants.
In earlier times relationships, cooperation, and team Sadly, loneliness has the opposite effect. In fact, loneliness
sports, such as hunting and gathering, all require developing in the elderly generates an increase in mortality comparable
friends. Families came together with others to form tribes, to smoking. Melancholy is an unpleasant emotional response

46 Life in Naples | Aug/Sept/Oct 2018