"Many people will walk in and out of your life; but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart." -- Unknown

Friends are our truest treasures. How many times have they:

Made us laugh when we felt like crying over a bad mistake?

Made us feel loved when our boyfriends (or girlfriends) broke up with us?

Gave us the courage to go back to school or to change careers?

Like armor, good friends make us almost invincible, capable of warding off the blows life occasionally deals us.

Because of their steadfastness, we see setbacks for what they are: temporary.

Because friends accept us for who we are, we gain the confidence to dream great dreams—and to make them real.

Friends liven up our days with their twisted humor, their honest answers, and their ability to bear our gloating when we beat them at golf or tennis. 

We can even trust them with our most embarrassingsecrets! What a relief it is for us to reveal our true selves to someone!

It's no wonder, then, that medical researchers have found that those who have friends tend to be happier, healthier, and live longer than those who do not. In fact, friendship has numerous physical and spiritual benefits.
 
What Do The Experts Say?

According to research studies, our brains are programmed to receive unexpected rewards and pleasures. Friendship is the foundation of many of these unexpected pleasures, such as a spontaneous game of racquetball, a spur-of-the moment decision to see a movie, and an outpouring of praise for something we did well.

According to RealAge.com, a long-term, loving relationship can reduce a person's "Real Age" by as many as 6-1/2 years. Such a statistic is not to be taken lightly. A study by McClelland and fellow Harvard researchers concluded that once people establish an "affiliative connection"—a relationship of friendship, love, or other positive bonding—they feel emotions that positively affect their immune systems.

In Conclusion

A growing body of research confirms that having compassionate friends is beneficial for our psychological and spiritual well-being—and for physical health. Thus, one can say that a healthy lifestyle includes not only eating well, exercising, and avoiding tobacco but also having a circle of friends. In fact, researcher Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University calls the connection between satisfying personal relationships and better immune function "one of the most robust findings" in psycho-neuro-immunology, (the study of how emotions, stress, and behavior affect resistance to disease.) 

Having a strong social network is linked to lower mortality rates for both healthy and unhealthy people, including those with heart disease and some types of cancer. In cases of terminal illness, having close friends is associated with longer survival rates.

Research has found not only that friendship benefits us, but that the lack of it harms us. Those who have no friends or close ties seem to suffer the most from loneliness, social isolation, and feelings of worthlessness. These with such feelings feel great stress, and stress contributes to a variety of health disorders. These disorders include heart attacks, asthma, certain types of cancer, diabetes, herpes, headaches, and even the common cold! As James S. House of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research stated, "Social relationships, or the relative lack thereof, constitute a major risk factor for health—rivaling the effects of well-established health risk factors such as cigarette smoking, blood pressure, blood lipids, obesity, and physical activity." 

What is the scientific explanation for such findings? One can well argue that humans are social creatures and therefore need to bond in order to lead a healthy life. 

Friends act as buffers between us and stressful events. They also cause us to feel cared for and loved. These feelings in turn cause us to feel worthy of love. This feeling of worthiness helps us to think differently, which positively affects our attitude toward stressful events. 

Friendship helps us travel life's roads with health, high confidence, low stress, dignity, and joy. In other words, friendship is good for us, body and soul! 

By Anne Verville