Why Friends Are Good for Your Health and Well-Being

“Socializing is like exercise for the brain. It’s like going to the gym is for your muscles,” says Ben Rein, a neurologist at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo and author of Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection.

That’s particularly important as people age, he says. Having friends “is really effective at sustaining brain matter, which can protect us against age-related brain shrinkage.”

The bad news: While it’s increasingly clear that having friends helps people later in life, that’s when it’s hardest to make them, according to a new, international study, published August 2025, by scientists in Sweden and Brazil. They found that contact with friends flattens at midlife and falls as people get older.

 A third of adults aged 50 to 80 in a survey by the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan (supported by AARP) said they sometimes or often feel isolated — a slightly larger proportion than before the COVID-19 pandemic. And a 2025 AARP survey found that 40 percent of U.S. adults 45 and older report feeling lonely.

“Maybe their children have moved away,” says Preeti Malani, the survey’s lead author and a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. “Families are distant these days and often don’t all live in the same town. Isolation can also be a result of things like hearing loss, low vision or someone can’t drive.”

Among older adults experiencing loneliness, three-quarters in the poll said their mental health was poor, and more than half said they had poor physical health.

It can be so hard to make friends at that stage of life that this was the subject of an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning by octogenarians Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and septuagenarian Sally Field. “ ‘You don’t make new friends after 60,’ ” Fonda said her ex-husband Ted Turner used to say.

That’s wrong, Fonda contended. But “you have to pursue people that you want to be friends with. And you have to say, ‘I’m intentionally wanting to be your friend.’  ”

There’s been a surge of attention on the health effects of staying social, experts say, since the U.S. surgeon general in 2023 declared “an epidemic” of loneliness and isolation, and new technology such as biomarkers has made it easier to track the physical effects of being social.

There’s also a growing number of things that older Americans can do about it. These don’t have to involve big groups, Ong says. “A person with a steady neighbor they chat with, a couple of close friends and regular family contact is doing well,” he says.

Kishla Price is part of an all-women social club in the Hampton, Virginia, area called Over 50 and FLY, which stands for Full of Life and Young (at heart). They meet up for dinners, theme parties and master classes about such things as skin care and estate planning.

“For women like us, in the second half of our lives, it’s a lot of divorce and empty nesting,” says Price, 57, who says the group hopes to expand. When they get together, she says, “we laugh, we play games, we do karaoke. We’ll go to a wine festival. And every time we leave each other, we leave feeling more fulfilled.”

Charlie Cianfarini, 75, has joined a network called the Virtual Senior Center through which people 60 and older meet on Zoom — for free, if they live in New York state, which subsidizes memberships. His daughter, a social worker, suggested it after he retired and his wife died, says Cianfarini, who lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. About 2,000 people belong to VSC, a company spokesperson says.

“It’s been a lifesaver,” Cianfarini says. “Otherwise, I don’t know what I would be doing. You feel like you’re part of a group.”

VSC offers group games and classes, but Cianfarini likes the open-ended chats the most. “The discussions can be about anything,” he says. “I’ve always been a little cautious about opening up to new people. But you become comfortable with these people because they share.”

Even virtual meetings like these can have a positive effect on health, says Weintraub. “Just having a human on the other side is good enough to have an effect.”

Sometimes they even protrude into the real world. Cianfarini and eight friends he met through VSC are going on a cruise together.

Here are some other ways that older Americans can find social connections: 

1. Join or start a club

It can be a book club, game club, travel club or garden club. Many libraries and senior centers offer rosters of clubs like these.

2. Volunteer

AARP lists volunteer opportunities and events, by state.

3. Join apps or websites

VSC and Stitch help older adults connect. With Stitch, you can host or attend events either in person or online, from walks and museum visits to cocktail parties. Teleparty syncs up movies and shows from streaming services so people can watch them together virtually and chat about them.

4. Take advantage of AARP resources for connections and friendships

AARP holds virtual and in-person classes, concerts, movies, community groups and other events throughout the country. Find out more at AARP Events. The Ethel Gathering Groups are in 48 states and offer a way for women 55 and over to meet up in person and make friends. You can find a local Ethel Gathering Group in your area here. The Girlfriend Book Club is an online literary community hosted by AARP’s The Girlfriend Newsletter and its associated Facebook channels. Designed for women and Gen X readers, the Girlfriend Book Club features a monthly book pick, book giveaways, author interviews and deep discussions with other like-minded women who love to read.

4. Join places of worship or civic organizations

Check out religious institutions and civic organizations such as Rotary clubs, which welcome new members.

5. Community meetups 

These offer a way to meet like-minded people with shared interests, and there’s a group of them specifically for older adults.

6. Reinforce existing or lapsed friendships, so they last for life

When he thinks about socializing, Rein says, he envisions a swimming pool with a deep end and a shallow end. “Connection can happen at any depth,” he says.

“Even dipping your toes in the shallow end is good — talking to the cashier at the grocery store, saying hello to your neighbor. You get into this pool, and you feel way better. And that’s how interaction is: We benefit from being in the pool at all.”

Editor’s note: This story, first published Oct. 19, 2023, has been updated.