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| The Health Benefits Of Sisterhood By :Linda Reichert |
| There are numerous benefits to women who gather together. Not only spiritual and mental benefits, but researchers have shown there are physical benefits as well. A UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. When women come together it is a time to be able to leave the stress of our normal everyday world. We are able to leave the high pressures of work and the other demands that we have on our lives for a short period. It's a time to join together and relax and be ourselves without any pressures or demands. Women can assemble together to share the stories of their life experiences. Some stories we can relate to and some stories we can learn from. Together we can work on healing our inner wounds and finding strength, courage and support from other women. Women friends can help shape who we are and what we can become. They help us to discover our inner spirit, fill emotional gaps and help us to remember who we really are and encourage us to be so. Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D. has found that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a women, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When women actually engage in this tending or befriending, studies show that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone, which men produce in high levels when they are under stress, seems to reduce the effect of oxytocin. Estrogen seems to enhance it. The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health. "The tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol. The Nurses Health Study from Harvard Medical School found female friends help us live better and women were less likely to develop physical impairments and were more likely to lead a joyful life. The results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidants was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight. If friends counter the stress that so many of us are under and if they help keep us healthy and even add years to our lives, why do we have such a hard time finding the time to spend with them? It seems that every time we get overly busy with work or family, the first thing we do is let go of our friendships with other women. This is really a big mistake explains Dr. Josselson. Women are such a source of strength for each other and we push them right to the back burner. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they are with other women. It is very healing and positive experience. Resources: UCLA Studies on Friendship Among Women, Taylor, S.E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B.P., Gruenewald,T.L, Gurung, R.A. R., & Updegraff J.A. (2000), Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not fight or Flight, Psychological Review, 107(3),41-429, Gale Berkowitz |