If You Want to Live Longer (and Happier), You Need Better Friends ASAP with Dr. Marisa Franco

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers and WHOOP.

Our friendships and relationships are an integral part of who we are and how we evolve. Even though we don’t need each other to survive anymore, we do need each other to thrive. All of the best things in life come from connection, community, and relationships. 

So how do we make and keep friends in an era of distraction, burnout, and chaos, especially in a society that often prizes romantic love at the expense of other relationships?

Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks to Dr. Marisa G. Franco about how friendships are the most influential thing on our health, success, and happiness. They also talk about how to make, maintain, and deepen friendships and why understanding your attachment style—secure, anxious, or avoidant—is the key to unlocking what’s working (and what’s failing) in your friendships.

Dr. Franco is a psychologist and national speaker. She works as a professor at the University of Maryland and is the author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends. She writes about friendship for Psychology Today and has been a featured connection expert for major publications like the New York Times, The Telegraph, and Vice.

In this episode, we dive into: 

-The connection between friendships, relationships, and longevity (2:49)

-Why social connection affects our longevity (5:33)

-Questions to ask yourself to figure out if you’re lonely (12:15)

-How being a better friend helps you in every aspect of your life (16:33)

-How to make friends as an adult (20:35)

-How to break into an established friend group (24:22)

-How our baggage affects how we show up as friends (29:57) 

-How to assess if you are being a bad friend (48:56)

-Firing a friend (1:02:38)

-How our trauma impacts our relationships (1:07:26) 

-How to navigate differing opinions in friendships (1:09:04) 

For more on Dr. Franco, follow her on Instagram @drmarisagfranco, Twitter @drmarisagfranco, and through her website, drmarisagfranco.com. Get her book, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends, here.

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers and WHOOP.

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