Can Social Ties Boost Longevity?
If you’re too busy navigating the competing demands of work and family obligations that you ignore your own needs, you’re in good company. I’ve spent the last few decades in what has felt like a moonbounce of controlled chaos, jumping from parenting duties to work deadlines.
For years, adrenaline fueled my life just fine. But when I realized some pesky physical symptoms — my GI tract was off, and I wasn’t sleeping well — were actually signs of burnout, I decided I needed a break from at least one of my responsibilities.
I took a “gap year” from work and set out on a “curiosity tour,” in search of people making bold, heartfelt pivots. I interviewed more than 150 women, ages 45 to 105, and what I found amazed me, including women who had traded big, impressive jobs to follow their hearts: A lawyer who opened a bookshop, a former magazine editor who performs improv, a network news producer who does hyper-local journalism, and a scientist who left behind her lab to start a volunteer band of “weed warriors” to eradicate harmful, invasive vines that endanger trees.
Excerpted from Katie Couric Media
