The Friendship Boost

Last week I talked about the importance of reminding yourself to keep doing the good and healthy things that elevate your life. Having a good, active social life is a big one. It’s not only me that believes keeping up friendships can boost your health and the quality of life either. Some years back, I read an article on the Mayo Clinic website about just how important it is to maintain your friends and social circle.

According to this article friendships can:

• Increase your sense of belonging and purpose.
• Boost your happiness.
• Reduce stress.
• Improve your self-worth.
• Help you cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss or the death of a loved one.
• Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise.

Now, that’s a lot of benefits for something most of us would like to have more of anyways, at least we think we would. But we don’t always keep up those relationships, which is strange. Why don’t we?

It seems that life just gets in the way, and we always don’t prioritize our social life. We are constantly drawn away by things such as work, caring for children or elderly parents, or trying to make a dent in that long to-do list that is always hanging over our heads. We also move around a lot these days so even well-established friendships start to fade with the distance between us all. And then it’s hard to find the time and even motivation to go out and make new friends. But it would seem, we can’t really afford not to.

It’s not that we need to have a lot of friends to get these benefits, but rather, according to the Mayo clinic article, it’s the quality of the friendships. You want to have friendships that fulfill your individual need for a certain kind of closeness, comfort, and availability. This is different for everyone but the important thing is that they are friendships you value.

So, take time to call, visit, write or whatever else is appropriate for the relationship you have with your friends. Don’t let time and distance get in the way of acquiring all the great benefits friendships bring you. And, remember, you’re also giving those same benefits to others so you’re helping to boost their health as well as yours.

If you’d like to read the Mayo clinic article, you can find it at: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/friendships/MH00125

The Friend Factor

I don’t know about you, but this world stopping virus has pounded into my head how very important and uplifting friends, and socializing in general, is to our lives. I’m sure you are like me, feeling the loss of this huge reduction of face to face socializing with friends, business partners, and even some family, especially right now. I’m sure that it’s not only me that believes keeping up friendships is important to your health and quality of life. I came across an article on the Mayo Clinic website about just how important it is to maintain your friends and social circle.

According to this article friendships can:

1. Increase your sense of belonging and purpose.
2. Boost your happiness.
3. Reduce stress.
4. Improve your self-worth.
5. Help you cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss, or death of a loved one.
6. Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise.

Now, that’s a lot of benefits for something most of us would like to do anyways. Of course, with the COVID19 virus we are suddenly hit with a huge shortage of social encounters that we have probably been taking for granted. So why don’t we, even under normal times, keep up with our friends better? It’s likely because life just gets in the way.

We are constantly drawn away from time with our friends by other priorities such as work, caring for children or elderly parents, or trying to make a dent in that long to do list that is always hanging over our heads. Also, many of us do a lot traveling and even move around the country so sometimes even our well-established friendships start to fade with the distance between us all. And then, sometimes, it’s hard to find the time and even the motivation to go out and make new friends. But that is something that we really cannot afford to not do.  Hey, maybe this virus scare will stimulate us to greatly improve our drive to be closer to our friends and make more of them.  Personally, I am certainly going to pay more attention to my face to face social life and my friends when this thing is over.

When I think of my own life and all my friends, I realize and appreciate, even more, my business of investing in real estate and all the friends I made along the way. Most are still great friends to this day. I also got a huge increase in good new friends from that thing called TENNIS-I love it!!

So, hey… let us all stay positive during this virus thing and make plans to spend more time with our friends when this is over as well as having plans to make new ones!