Best friends are good for more than compliments when we lose weight or snapping double selfies at our favorite spots. The best friendships can have a dramatic impact on our health and well-being.
In honor of Best Friends Day, we’ve put together just a few of the reasons your best friends are making you healthier.
Friends boost happiness.
This is especially true if your best friend just happens to be, well, happy. Research has found that people who had an upbeat friend who lived within one mile of each other were 25 percent more likely to be happy themselves.
Friends reduce stress.
Women who surround themselves with other women experience a boost in the stress-reducing hormone oxytocin. Being around them leads to a drop in blood pressure when compared to being around difficult family members or colleagues. A bottle of wine, a chick flick and some chocolate shared between them doesn’t hurt either.
Friends make us smarter.
Not only are BFF beside us as we deal with the aches, pains and wrinkles that accompany aging, but research shows that friendships improve brain health as we get older. In the best friendships, each member relies on the other to remember particular things – leading to a relationship where both people are smarter together than they are alone.
Friends keep us healthy.
Did you know that strong social relationships increase a person’s likelihood of survival by 50 percent? One study found that among women with breast cancer, those who participated in a support group lived twice as long as those who did not. Best friends provide a level of mental support but they also make great workout buddies and healthy recipe guinea pigs.
So pick up that smartphone and set a date with your bff. It’s good for you.