They Teach
This at Stanford
In an evening class at
Stanford, the last lecture was on the mind-body connection - the relationship
between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said,
among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his
health is to be married to a woman, whereas for a woman, one of the best
things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her
girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.
Women connect with each other
differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with
stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend
time" helps us to create more serotonin - a neurotransmitter that helps combat
depression and can create a general feeling of well being.
Women share
feelings whereas men often form
relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy
and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives
are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But
their feelings? Rarely.
Women do it all of the time. We
share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good
for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as
important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.
There's a tendency to think
that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but
when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more
productively engaged—not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and
maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is
as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!
So every time you hang out to
schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself
for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky.
Sooooo… let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very
good for our health.
Life isn't about surviving the
storm; but how you dance in the rain.
