It’s that time of year.

Oh yes, the New Year is rapidly approaching.

While I want all of us to eat healthy, exercise, organize the house, and save the world, I recently heard about a longevity study that didn’t list any of these things as the key to a long and healthy life (unless you are a super-hero, then saving the world and longevity go hand-in-hand).

These people in the study, who were all over 90 years old, seemed to have nothing in common and some even seemed to have habits that you would think would shorten their life. Some never ate any vegetables. Some smoked. Some were overweight. Some could barely afford to buy food and didn’t have health care. But here they all were, in good health at a ripe old age.

So what did they all have in common?

Their relationships.

All of them had quite a few (many over a dozen) people that they were very intimately close to. People they loved and who loved them back. People whom they could be themselves and speak freely and just feel at home with.

The study even found that close relationships reduce brain diseases or memory problems and could add an average of 10 healthy years to our life! While we tend to be diligent about building the brains of our children through our interaction with them, we can’t neglect our own self-care of keeping our brains growing and changing throughout life by staying connected to others.

It’s easy to see all the “convenient” relationships in our lives and think that these count. We chat with the waitress at our favorite restaurant and we enjoy our co-workers and neighbors. While these relationships are good and do increase our happiness, they usually don’t stay when our circumstances change and can still leave us with an aching loneliness. These deeper relationships require vulnerability and most importantly time spent nurturing them.

It’s never too late to build loving relationships in our lives. If you are looking for new friends, getting involved in a church, club or volunteering could give you meaningful joint goals with those people. And then make sure you’re not so busy that you can’t include some carefree timelessness with them. If you don’t have any free time in your life, you can’t have any friends. Make some space in there for your most important people and say no to less important stuff.

So as a challenge to all of us, let’s include our relationships in our New Year’s Resolutions. Because maybe that will help us live a long and healthy life more than eating our vegetables. (But eat your vegetables, because I’m a mom and I say so!)

Wishing you much love in 2019!