Hi lovelies! Today I was going to write the Blissful Blogger list (thank you to those who tagged me) but I got sidetracked when I read an email from my mom about the importance of female friendships. It was just a forward but it claimed that spending time with your girlfriends is actually vital to your health. Never one to pass up time with my girls, I wanted to look into this further.
My mom is truly my best friend!
Apparently, eleven years ago UCLA did a landmark study on stress and our responses to it. Usually this study was only performed on men but recently they included women and discovered that the genders deal with stress completely differently. When women are stressed, they release the hormone oxytocin which interacts with estrogen and encourages them to tend to children or to other women. As it turns out, when spending time with other women, more oxytocin is released which counters stress and produces a calming effect! Moreover, when oxytocin levels are high, stress is less likely to do damage to the body and women are better able to heal better and faster.
My bestie and sorority big sis
But even with evidence like this, we tend to feel bad about spending time with our girlfriends. We become too busy with our work, families and significant others to feel that we have the time to make that phone call or plan that dinner. Yet, not only is it important, but it’s necessary for our health. If your friends live far away, don’t worry because in a study on the affect of female friendships on breast cancer survival rates, they found that proximity among friends was not even a factor, simply whether they had friends.
Being silly with my best friend and old roomie
It’s funny but in the blog world, I really feel like we all are friends too. This is such an incredible, supportive community and I truly feel that we are all good for each others health and well being! So today, I’ll be reading your blogs for a little “girlfriend time” and tonight I’ll be going out to dinner with one in San Francisco. Here’s to our health ladies!
Questions:
-What’s your favorite thing to do with your girlfriends?
Love this post, Emily!! I am so grateful for the friendship we’ve cultivated through blogging! Even though we haven’t met face-to-face, I still feel as though I know you, and that we could chat for HOURS over a glass of wine and some yummy food. The blogging community is FULL of genuinely nice, caring and supportive people, and I couldn’t agree with you more: we’re good for each other! We may blog about health issues, but it’s our interaction with one another that’s benefiting us most. So cool!
I can’t wait to meet you in November when I come to San Francisco for Foodbuzz! xoxo ❤
I agree! Time with the girls makes me feel 100% better, even if I wasn’t feeling bad in the first place, my hear just gets super happy and relaxed… I never expected to feel such a ‘real’ connection when I started to blog but it’s true, it’s a little ‘girl time’. Even though my blog is only a few months old, I treasure the beginnings of friendships that I have. You girls are the best! 🙂
Have fun at dinner! 🙂
I agree with you completely about the blog world offering a “sense of community”. It’s difficult to understand as an observer, but once you start reading and commenting on the same blogs– you feel like you actually know the person in real life!
Same with you Emily– you’re one of the first blogs I started to read and I feel like I know you personally (I mean that in the LEAST creepiest way possible.. haha 😉 )
Cute post! My favorite thing is tanning by the pool with my best friend, eating some healthy snacks, and then taking a dip in the pool.
This is a great post and ironically, this is the second post I’ve read today that deals with stress! I’m taking full advantage of this concept and planning a roadtrip with some of my girlfriends this weekend :).
What a great post! I think I know the email forward you are talking about, too 🙂
My favorite thing to do with my girlfriends is to reminisce with my friends from elementary school about growing up. It’s so funny to think back to everyone’s little quirks and it’s awesome to realize that you have such old friends who know you so well.
Great post! I loove time with girlfriends! My girlfriends and I love to have some vino, and talk for hours and hours (and eat delicious food!)
Fab post! I love spending time with girlfriends but work, kids, husbands etc seem to take over a bit. But we are making a more conscious effort to try and get together at least once a month
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