| Girlfriends: Just what the Doctor Ordered |
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| Written by Emily Terbrueggen | ||||||||||
| Wednesday, 09 September 2009 05:33 | ||||||||||
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Girlfriends: Just what the Doctor Ordered Girlfriends offer advice, lend support and make for super shopping partners, but your relationships may run deeper than you realize. Read on to learn how your female friendships can help your health.  Life without gal pals would be terribly boring and drab, but could it harm your health? Judy Van Ginkel, co-author of Life Begins and Ends with Girlfriends and president of Every Child Succeeds, has found research that points to the conclusion that lack of lady friends can really do a number on your mental and physical health. During her years of research for her book, which focuses on the importance of female friendships, Van Ginkel has accumulated a multitude of stories and studies describing the subject.
On the scientific end of what could be called the "girlfriend effect" is a study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles on friendships among women. Strong social ties with other females "reduced risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol," according to the study.
But the benefits of friendship aren't just numbers on a doctor's chart. Women's first line of defense when dealing with depression, stress or anxiety is not their parents or male counterparts but their girlfriends, according to another study by the National Association of Nurse Practioners in Women's Health. So maybe, in some way, your girlfriends are helping you fight disease and depression one lunch date at a time!
Having a strong support network of friends can counter feelings of depression, isolation, sadness and loneliness, Van Ginkel says -- and Facebook friends don't count! "With all the social networking available it looks like everyone has 752 friends, but that’s not friendship in the sense of how we are talking about friendship," Van Ginkel says.
Female friendships are not only an integral part of human society but of the animal kingdom in general. Debba Haupert, founder of Girlfriendology.com, designs her Web site and life around the idea that "girlfriends make women healthier, happier, less-stressed, live longer and feel more beautiful." Haupert discussed with Cincy Chic how a story about the prairie vole inspired her.
In The Tending Instinct, author Shelley E. Taylor discusses the tendencies of the prairie vole, a mouse-like rodent that is monogamous with its mate. When exposed to stress, the male prairie vole runs to his female partner (or his "wife") for comfort. However, when the female encounters stress, she does not seek out the comfort of her "hubby" but that of the female voles with which she was raised — her girlfriends, Haupert says.
Some of the health benefits of having a good female support system in your life aren’t scientific at all but are as simple as a friend caring about you. If a concerned girlfriend caught wind that you’ve missed or are avoiding your doctor's appointment to have a mammogram, they will make a point to help you set up a time to see your radiologist and go with you, Van Ginkel says. That's just what friends do, and something as small as providing a ride and a hand to hold can save a life.
To buy a copy of Van Ginkel's book Life Begins and Ends with Girlfriends visit the Cincinnati Book Publishing Web site.
Photo courtesy of Judith Van Ginkel
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| Last Updated on Monday, 14 September 2009 03:58 | ||||||||||
