Day 8: Girlfriends Are Good For You! (Living Healthier & Happier)

The Girls from Girlfriend Celebrations are today’s contributing guest bloggers. One of the most definite ways to live healthier and happier is making time for Girlfriends! I had the pleasure of meeting Dawn, co-contributor of Girlfriend Celebrations for the first time last week after connecting on Twitter. Let’s read what these girlfriends, Dawn Williams Bertuca and Tina VanZant Bishop have to share about living healthier and happier… Girlfriends Are Good for You!

The June/July issue of Working Mother is the latest magazine to report on the link between girlfriends and good health. In fact, the magazine even calls "neglecting your girlfriends" one of its top three "energy sappers!" (Check out the article here.) If you need motivation to start scheduling girlfriend get-togethers, how’s this: Now there’s proof that girlfriends are good for your health, well-being, and relationships.

We already know that friendship improves physical health. A number of studies have shown that social bonds help us cope with stress, lower our blood pressure, and boost our immune system. But now, as Working Mother and other women’s magazines have reported, UCLA researchers have identified a unique role for female friendship.

Apparently, women’s physical stress response is different than men’s. While "fight or flight" is the typical known stress response for men, women, when faced with stress, have a biological instinct to "huddle together with other females for safety." The researchers named this behavior "tend or befriend."
In addition to bolstering your physical health, keeping that monthly date with your girlfriends brings other important benefits:

• Friendships contribute to your own personal growth. Connecting with girlfriends helps women temporarily step out of their roles as workers, wives or mothers and remember themselves as individuals with unique interests and needs.
• Female friendships are essential to female well-being. Sure, men can be friends. But there are certain needs they can’t meet. Only women can share stories and advice about mammograms, childbirth, and other distinctly feminine areas.
• Friendships can make marriages stronger. When you take time to nurture your "girlfriend" side, you are happier and more fulfilled, and that makes you a better partner.
• Female friendships are (often) forever. Let’s face it–women live longer than men, and romantic relationships can come and go. The meaningful friendships you make now may sustain you later–even into your golden years.
Dawn Williams Bertuca is a professional writer and editor and a mother of two. Tina VanZant Bishop is a Registered Nurse, photographer, and mother of two.

As friends with busy professional and personal lives, they decided to do something to help themselves and other women strengthen the girlfriend connection. In November of 2005, GirlfriendCelebrations.com was born, with the hope of generating more fun, friendship, and female community on the web and in real life.

Since then, oh, how we’ve grown. As the premier providers of girls night ideas and girlfriend party ideas on the web, we are proud bearers of the torch of female friendship. We believe strongly that we are helping women get the most from their girlfriend relationships—and as a result, improve their lives. To learn more about these Girlfriends, please visit: www.girlfriendcelebrations.com.

Related Posts:

Women & Friendship are Helping Each Other Live Healthier

More Evidence: Girlfriends for Longer Life

21 Days to Living Healthier & Happier Archives
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7

Live Healthier & Happier,