Long lunches, dinners that run on hours, the witching hours spent with vodka tonics, cigarettes and lost conversations. Science might explain them all. Twenty years ago, the psychologist Jim Coan threatened 16 married women with electrocution. This was not a pub lock-in that had careered out of control: Dr Coan and his collaborators wanted to see how the hypothalamus — the controller in the brain that regulates everything that keeps us alive — reacted. Alone, the women’s brains were understandably highly stressed. With a stranger holding their hand, things calmed slightly. Friends improved that further; husbands helped the most. As party games go, it’s a step up from Mr and Mrs. But Coan’s point was this: we need those closest to us.
By 2011, Dr Coan had developed the findings into the Social Baseline Theory. It tells us that the brain is hardwired to expect a close network around us; that those people around us help our own brains more easily regulate both the mental condition and our body’s metabolic state. Put the other way, those who live isolated lives are subjecting their brain to stress it cannot cope with, slowly wearing it out. Biologically speaking, we need our friends, lovers, mates down the pub. Go to lunch, it might just save your life.
