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Friendship And Health
When you spend time with good friends how do you feel? When I am connecting with good friends time feels like it stands still and I am full of life. The heaviness of life's challenges and stressors seem to just go away. Hopefully this is a familiar feeling to you too. There is wonderful science that supports this feeling and it may just encourage you to set your intentions on spending more time with friends. Good friends may just help you to live longer -- and better.
Life can be so busy and sometimes we allow our close friends to slide to the bottom of our "to do" list. The power of friendships can be the balance in life that helps us to be mindful of what is most important. Here's an inspiring study to support you in both creating and connecting with friends. Research tracking several thousand seniors over 10 years, revealed that those individuals with a large network of friends outlived those with the fewest friends by 22%. In fact, as our social network decreases, our risk for mortality increases. In other words, a large network of friends equals a longer, healthier life. And where can you find a group of like-minded individuals? Look no further than your Sunday morning service and/or church classes and social and support groups!
How does the friendship factor boost our years? There are several reasons for this increase. First, true friends are good for keeping us away from health damaging behaviors like smoking and excessive drinking. They inspire insight during those times when we are debating whether or not to get involved with something and express their loving concerns as appropriate. Being and having a good friend is helpful in reducing the incidence of depression and at the same time is a powerful driver for boosting self esteem. Improving well-being appears to thrive under the influence of friendships. How does friendship fare in the face of disease?
In the journal Cancer it was reported that when women were faced with advanced ovarian cancer those with a strong friendship network had lower levels of a protein that is directly linked to more aggressive types of cancer. Lower levels of this protein also allow for greater effectiveness with cancer treatment.
Great friendships are built on love, and it appears that the love-heart connection is powerful medicine for our hearts too. Studies show that people who have had a heart attack live longer when they have a strong social network around them. There is a direct relationship to lower rates of cardiovascular disease in general when we are well-connected to good friends. The stress hormone cortisol is found to be generally lower when we are part of a community of friends. Having a lower level of this hormone not only helps us to maintain better life balance it also helps keep us from contracting a cold and other viruses. In spite of all this good that comes through friends. How committed are we to having and being a friend?
Creating and maintaining good friends during these busy and often trying times can require intention and focus. A recently completed 20-year study determined that we as a country and community have fewer friends than we did in the past. Researchers concluded that "we" are 30% less likely to have someone in our life that we can count on to share deeper matters of the heart compared to when the study began. It was found that the main reason for the declining rates and quality of friendships were long work hours and our deepening "relationship" with the internet.
I believe this growing disconnect we are presently facing with our close friends, or lack thereof, is a mirror of the growing discontent between our countries and world neighbors. When we focus on loving ourselves more and strengthening our friendships -- be that with childhood connections, new neighbors or the person you sit across from at work, our planet will see an energetic shift in consciousness and peace.
Life can be so busy and sometimes we allow our close friends to slide to the bottom of our "to do" list. The power of friendships can be the balance in life that helps us to be mindful of what is most important. Here's an inspiring study to support you in both creating and connecting with friends. Research tracking several thousand seniors over 10 years, revealed that those individuals with a large network of friends outlived those with the fewest friends by 22%. In fact, as our social network decreases, our risk for mortality increases. In other words, a large network of friends equals a longer, healthier life. And where can you find a group of like-minded individuals? Look no further than your Sunday morning service and/or church classes and social and support groups!
How does the friendship factor boost our years? There are several reasons for this increase. First, true friends are good for keeping us away from health damaging behaviors like smoking and excessive drinking. They inspire insight during those times when we are debating whether or not to get involved with something and express their loving concerns as appropriate. Being and having a good friend is helpful in reducing the incidence of depression and at the same time is a powerful driver for boosting self esteem. Improving well-being appears to thrive under the influence of friendships. How does friendship fare in the face of disease?
In the journal Cancer it was reported that when women were faced with advanced ovarian cancer those with a strong friendship network had lower levels of a protein that is directly linked to more aggressive types of cancer. Lower levels of this protein also allow for greater effectiveness with cancer treatment.
Great friendships are built on love, and it appears that the love-heart connection is powerful medicine for our hearts too. Studies show that people who have had a heart attack live longer when they have a strong social network around them. There is a direct relationship to lower rates of cardiovascular disease in general when we are well-connected to good friends. The stress hormone cortisol is found to be generally lower when we are part of a community of friends. Having a lower level of this hormone not only helps us to maintain better life balance it also helps keep us from contracting a cold and other viruses. In spite of all this good that comes through friends. How committed are we to having and being a friend?
Creating and maintaining good friends during these busy and often trying times can require intention and focus. A recently completed 20-year study determined that we as a country and community have fewer friends than we did in the past. Researchers concluded that "we" are 30% less likely to have someone in our life that we can count on to share deeper matters of the heart compared to when the study began. It was found that the main reason for the declining rates and quality of friendships were long work hours and our deepening "relationship" with the internet.
I believe this growing disconnect we are presently facing with our close friends, or lack thereof, is a mirror of the growing discontent between our countries and world neighbors. When we focus on loving ourselves more and strengthening our friendships -- be that with childhood connections, new neighbors or the person you sit across from at work, our planet will see an energetic shift in consciousness and peace.
