Togethering is a word we use at the Ludarium for something that doesn’t have a good name: people coming together, usually in person, to share life. Not networking, not an event, not a meeting with an agenda. Just the repeated act of being in a room with people you know, doing something together, over years. The tabletop game is the medium we use to start it and guide it. But the game is not the thing. The togethering is.
This article makes the case that togethering belongs on the same list as sleep, movement, and diet, and that the longevity research supports putting it there. It also explains why we think a game is the easiest way into it for most adults.
What is togethering, and why does it need a word?
English has words for the pieces. Community, friendship, socializing, hanging out. None of them capture the specific thing: a recurring, in-person, low-agenda gathering of the same people.
“Community” is too big and too abstract. “Socializing” sounds like a cocktail party. “Hanging out” is what teenagers do. “Friendship” names the relationship but not the practice that maintains it.
Togethering is the practice. It is the Tuesday card game, the standing dinner, the Thursday night at the game lounge. It is what the Blue Zones researchers found in Sardinian plazas and Okinawan moai, what the Harvard Study of Adult Development found in the lives of its healthiest participants, and what the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory asked Americans to rebuild. Those sources describe it in different vocabularies. We think it deserves a single word.
A noun also makes it easier to treat as a habit. You can ask “did I get my togethering this week?” the way you ask about sleep or steps. That turns out to be useful.
Why should togethering count as a longevity practice?
Because the research on social connection and lifespan is as strong as the research on most things people already treat as health behaviors.
Julianne Holt-Lunstad’s 2010 meta-analysis at Brigham Young University pooled 148 studies covering more than 300,000 people and found that those with stronger social relationships had about a 50 percent greater likelihood of survival over the study periods, an effect the authors described as comparable to quitting smoking and exceeding physical inactivity or obesity. A 2015 follow-up found social isolation, loneliness, and living alone were each associated with roughly 26 to 32 percent higher mortality risk.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, running since 1938, has reported that satisfaction in close relationships in midlife predicted health and happiness at 80 better than cholesterol or blood pressure at 50. Its directors use the term “social fitness” to describe the ongoing work those relationships require. We cover that in social fitness: training your relationships like a muscle.
The Blue Zones work by Dan Buettner puts belonging, family, and the right social circle among its “Power 9” shared habits of long-lived regions, with the Okinawan moai, a group of friends committed to each other for life, as its best-known example.
And the Surgeon General’s advisory summarized the whole picture: social disconnection is associated with higher risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression, and early death, and the response it asks for is making time for connection in daily life.
Put those together and togethering is not a nice-to-have. The research suggests it is one of the few things that moves the long-term numbers.
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What makes togethering different from just being social?
Three features, and most adult social life is missing at least two of them.
| Feature | Togethering | Typical adult socializing |
|---|---|---|
| Who | The same people, over time | Rotating, often new |
| When | Recurring, scheduled | Occasional, when someone organizes it |
| What | Something to do together | Mostly talk, often around food and drink |
| Where | In person | Increasingly on screens |
| Effort to sustain | Low once established | High every time |
The same people. Relationships deepen through repetition. Friendship researchers broadly agree that close ties need regular contact to stay close and decay surprisingly fast without it. A different group every time is socializing; the same group every week is togethering.
Recurring. The value is in not deciding. If every gathering requires someone to organize it, it happens four times a year. If it’s just Thursday, it happens fifty.
Something to do. This is the piece we think is most underrated, and it is why the Ludarium is built around games. An activity gives shy people a role, gives old friends a reason to sit together for three hours, and carries the group through weeks when nobody has anything to say. Rituals that last almost always have one.
Why is a game the easiest way into togethering?
Because a board game supplies all three features in a box.
It is recurring by nature. A standing game night is one of the easiest commitments to keep because there is never a question of what to do when you get there.
It draws the same people. Games have a natural group size, four to six, and reward familiarity. The group that has played Codenames together for a year is better at it, and better at each other.
It is something to do. You never arrive at a game night wondering how to start a conversation. You start by setting up Wingspan. The conversation arrives on its own somewhere around the second round.
It also works across differences that defeat other formats. A game of Ticket to Ride accommodates a 9-year-old and a 79-year-old, an extrovert and someone who barely speaks, a new neighbor and a friend of thirty years. Few other activities do.
And it is low cost. One game, one table, one night a week. No tickets, no reservations, no host cooking for eight. If you want a starting point, how to start a game night group covers the practical steps.
How do you practice togethering on purpose?
Treat it like any other health practice: a small dose, regularly, with the bar low enough that you keep doing it.
- One standing weekly gathering. The same night, the same few people, an activity. This is the core practice. Everything else is extra.
- Protect it like a workout. Don’t skip it because you’re tired. The tired weeks are when it does the most good.
- Keep it in person. Screens are better than nothing, but the research the Surgeon General cited points consistently toward physical presence.
- Let it be boring. The Sardinians play the same card games for decades. Novelty is not the goal. Continuity is.
- Hold an open chair. The group that can absorb a newcomer is the one that survives moves, deaths, and life changes.
- Start before you need it. The people who do well through retirement, illness, or loss are the ones who already had a Thursday.
The LEV Institute, which the Ludarium works alongside, works on the ethics and practice of living long and living well. Togethering is the piece of that work we are most sure about. The game is the reason. The people are the point.
FAQ
What does togethering mean?
Togethering is the recurring practice of coming together in person with the same people to share life, usually around a shared activity. The Ludarium uses the word to name the thing a weekly game night is really for.
Is social connection really linked to longevity?
The research suggests it is, strongly. Holt-Lunstad’s meta-analyses found the health effect of strong social ties comparable to quitting smoking, and the Harvard Study of Adult Development found relationship quality predicted late-life health better than most medical measures.
How often should I practice togethering?
There is no set dose, but weekly is the realistic floor that the research on habits and friendship maintenance both point toward. In the Blue Zones, social gatherings are described as a daily habit rather than a weekly one.
Why games instead of dinner or drinks?
Games give the gathering something to do, which makes it easier to sustain, more inclusive of quiet people, and more likely to survive the weeks when nobody has news. Dinner parties also require a host; games barely do.
Togethering for a lifetime
That is the Ludarium’s mission line, and the Indianapolis lounge is where we intend to practice it. New articles on play, health, and togethering go to subscribers first. Subscribe to the Ludarium newsletter for new pieces, and never stop playing.
Sources
- Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review, PLOS Medicine: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
- Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality, Perspectives on Psychological Science: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/perspectives/1745691614568352/
- Work out daily? OK, but how socially fit are you?, Harvard Gazette: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/02/work-out-daily-ok-but-how-socially-fit-are-you
- Power 9, Blue Zones: https://www.bluezones.com/2016/11/power-9/
- Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, U.S. Surgeon General: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
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