FRIENDS

 FRIENDS

What exactly are friends good for? There was a song titled, That's What Friends Are For, by Dione Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Elton John that speaks volumes about what friends are for. They are there through good times and the bad times. They know most everything about you and yet they still love you. 

It turns out that friends are so very good for our health. They don't just help you enjoy life but they may make you healthier too. How you may ask? From  The Upside  by Twill I found quite a bit of information.

• Friends keep our spirits up. That social connection is one of the strongest protections against depression. This is based on research at Massachusetts General Hospital. 
• One study suggested that when women communicate with their female friends, it can actually result in lowering their levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

 

• College students getting a flu shot were asked to list up to 20 close friends. After 6 months, those students who had named less than 13 friends produced significantly fewer antibodies to the flu virus than the group who listed more friends. This was also researched in a study. In a University College London study it was reported that being more socially active, especially in midlife, is linked with a significantly lower risk of developing dementia later on. Scientists believe that people who are socially engaged in exercising cognitive skills such as language and memory, may help them develop cognitive reserve, which is the capacity for the brain to withstand changes that usually lead to a decline in cognitive function.
• Having a supportive listener in your life is associated with better brain function. Participants in their 40's and 50's who had low listener availability in their lives showed a cognitive age that was 4 years older than those who had high listener availability.

Age does not seem to matter. We need friends all through our lives.

So we should all be able to see the importance of reaching out to a friend for our own sake as well as theirs. Love lights us all up! 

My very special group of friends. 

A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself!