Researchers surveyed participants to see how often they socialised and then followed up within five years. Death rates were highest among those who never socialised, with one in five of the most isolated dying during the five-year follow-up compared to just one in 14 people with active daily social lives.

Time to death was delayed by 42% in those who socialised occasionally, 48% in those who saw friends and family at least monthly and 87% in those who socialised nearly every day. Those who had the greatest likelihood of survival – reducing time to death by 110% – were those who socialised at least weekly.

This isn’t the first study to find that socialising helps the ageing process. One particularly shocking study from Ageing Journal found that isolation ages a person faster than smoking. The Harvard Study, a continuous 85-year study into happiness, reports that positive relationships keep us happier and healthier and help us live longer. Researchers have even found that relationships have more of an impact on our health than our social class, IQ and genes.

Want to live longer? Focus more on your social life than fitness gains, experts suggest