FRIEND(less)

F R I E N D S
is there really a benefit to having them. . . ?

Well
as you can imagine,
THERE IS A STUDY. . .
evidence-based-data:

Journalist, Tara Parker-Pope recently shared an article in the New York Times Sunday Edition that makes us ask the question:
WHAT GOOD ARE FRIENDS?

Whether it’s Mary and Rhoda, Woody and Buzz Lightyear, or the 20-somethings of “Friends,” Hollywood has long celebrated the power of friendship. And with good reason. A true friend gives support without judgment, comes through in a crisis and knows just the right thing to say when it matters most. Friendships are an essential ingredient in a happy life, so it’s time to give them the care and attention they deserve. Keep reading to learn why friendships matter, how to sustain them and the simple steps you can take right now to be a better friend.

The Benefits of Friendship

Family relationships often come with a dose of guilt and obligation. Friends, on the other hand, are the antidote to the burdens of daily life.

Friends Share the Load

How powerful is friendship? Researchers at the University of Virginia wanted to find out whether friendship influences how we approach the challenges of daily life. In an unusual experiment, researchers stood at the base of a steep hill (a 26 degree incline) on the university campus and asked 34 students as they walked by to help them in an experiment. Some students were by themselves, others were walking in pairs.

Each student was given a backpack filled with weights equal to about 20 percent of their body weight. While the students may have had the impression they were going to have to climb the hill, the researchers simply asked them to estimate how steep the climb would be. 

Notably, students standing alone perceived the hill slant as steeper and thought it would be harder to climb while carrying the weighted pack. But students who were standing next to a friend thought the hill looked easier to climb and gave lower estimates of its steepness. Interestingly, the longer the two friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared. 

Other studies support the notion that social support helps us cope with stress. When female college students were asked to complete challenging math tasks, their heart rates went up. But when they were asked to complete the math problems with a friend in the room, their heart rates were lower. Scientists also know that when rhesus monkeys are moved to a new environment, the level of stress hormones in their blood increases. But when a monkey is moved along with her preferred companion (monkeys form friendships too), the stress hormones measured in her blood were much lower. (Similar results have been seen with rats and guinea pigs.)

All this research suggests that friends can change our view of a challenging situation, and that the mere presence of a friend in the same room can lower our stress. Having friends essentially allows us to outsource some of the emotional burdens of daily life.

Friends With Health Benefits

Most of the research on health and relationships is focused on romantic partners. But researchers have found that our friendships actually have a bigger impact on our health. Here are some of the findings about the health benefits of having friends:

• A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends.
• In 2006, a study of nearly 3,000 nurses with breast cancer found that women without close friends were four times as likely to die from the disease as women with 10 or more friends. Notably, proximity and the amount of contact with a friend wasn’t associated with survival. Just having friends was protective. Having a spouse wasn’t associated with survival.
• In a six-year study of 736 middle-age Swedish men, being attached to a life partner didn’t affect the risk of heart attack and fatal coronary heart disease, but having friendships did. Among risk factors for cardiovascular health, lacking social support was as bad as smoking.

Why are friendships so good for us? Scientists have a few theories.

Logistical support: Friends can run errands and pick up medicine for a sick person, although in most studies, proximity was not a factor in the benefits of friendship.

Association: It may be that people with strong social ties also have better access to health services and care or are more likely to seek help.

Less stress: People with strong friendships are less likely than others to get colds, perhaps because they have lower stress levels.

Positive peer pressure: Researchers have found that certain health behaviors appear to be contagious and that our social networks — in person and online — can influence obesity, anxiety and overall happiness. A recent report found that a person’s exercise routine was strongly influenced by his or her social network.

But it could also work the opposite way, a large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight.

Friendships Make Aging Easier

Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and author, has studied the health habits of people who live in regions of the world where people live far longer than the average. He refers to these areas as “blue zones” and found that positive friendships are a common theme in these regions.

In Okinawa, Japan, where the average life expectancy for women is around 90, the oldest in the world, people form a kind of social network called a moai — a group of five friends who offer social, logistic, emotional and even financial support for a lifetime. In a moai, the group benefits when things go well, such as by sharing a bountiful crop, and the group’s families support one another when a child gets sick or someone dies. They also appear to influence one another’s lifelong health behaviors.

Buettner’s team created a quiz to help people assess the positive impact of their own social network. The quiz asks questions about your friends and the state of their health, how much they drink, eat and exercise, as well as their outlook. The goal is not for you to dump your less healthy friends, but to identify the people in your life who score the highest and to spend more time with them.

“I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network,” said Mr. Buettner, who advises people to focus on three to five real-world friends rather than distant Facebook friends. “In general you want friends with whom you can have a meaningful conversation,” he said. “You can call them on a bad day and they will care. Your group of friends are better than any drug or anti-aging supplement, and will do more for you than just about anything.”

So maybe the biggest question here isn’t,
DO FRIENDS DO US GOOD?
so much as
JUST WHAT KIND OF FRIEND AM I. . . ?
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
IT REALLY DOES MATTER
(p r o v e i t)