Building resilience: healthy relationships

It really is a little obvious maybe: people with healthy relationships have more resilience. It still is quite interesting though how having positive relationships and social competences has a direct and positive influence on your health. Here some of the impacts that being friendly to the people around you has (according to the researches of Dr. David Hamilton and Dr. Helmut Kolitzus).

1. It reduces the harmful substances in your blood (so, it actually works a little like heart-medications).

2. You have less of a chance to catch a cold.

3. Being nice to others enhances the emissions of serotonin and dopamine, so that you are less affected by depression and feel generally happier and more positive towards life.

4. The life-expectancy of socially capable people is about 7 years higher.

5. You sleep better.

6. You have more energy and a clearer picture of your self-esteem.

Naturally this is by far not a limited list. It just shows how being friendly is (even solely for health-benefits) absolutely worth it!

Resilience: my father, my role-model

Today, the third of May, I am flying back home after three intensive consultancy days in Hamburg. Today is also the day on which my dad, doctor Henry Donders, was born (121 years ago). He was a third child of a family that grew to be a family with 11 children. His father was the owner/director of a textile-factory in Tilburg. He was a strong figure who loved to work hard, but who was also very well capable of enjoying his life. Ones a year he used to take my father for a little trip to Brussels (remember: still in a time where there were no cars). My dad often took me on similar one-day trips across the country, and today I’m taking my kids on little trips across Europe as well.

My father became a general practitioner in Kerkrade. Where he mostly was attending to mine-workers that suffered from black lungs. He continued his studies to become an ophthalmologist, and finally he became a surgeon. He always loved being there for his patients. A colleague of his, Prof. Zeeman, wrote me a letter when I was born: ‘Paul, I wish for you that you become a great friend for many, like your father, who is a great friend for so many.’