Friday, August 6, 2010

Girlfriends and Blisters: Nature's Prozac

A thought to share....

She wrote............ I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection--the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends.

At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality girlfriend time" helps us to create more serotonin--a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel. Women do it all the time. We share from our souls with our sisters, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged--not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health!

We are indeed very very lucky.

So let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it's very good for our health.

Thank you Noe Noe, and, Happy Friday, y'all!

17 comments:

Rural Rambler said...

I'll be clinking a glass to this post today at wine time!!

Daryl said...

Aw ... Annie and Dunvilles .. and Nora's email .. fabulous post, Ms LaLa!

mom x 2 said...

LOVE IT!!!! and you and all the Blisters too!

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

Amen!

Ellen said...

Love Annie framed in Merlot. Well said.

Anonymous said...

I am going to cut and paste this and share it with my girlfriends tonight. Thanks for sharing it. No more guilt about talking on the phone for over an hour at a time!

Nurse Nancy said...

This is lovely...Annie sent this to me too. Glad to be part of the friendship circle :)

abb said...

Me framed by a wine glass...whoda thunk??

Lovely post my friend.

Keetha said...

Words of wisdom!

Jules said...

Love them gal pals;)

I Am Woody said...

Awwww. And all my home town peeps are gathering tonight for Turnip Greens 101. I need some girlfriend time! Wonder if I could show this to Vol Fan and get him to buy me a ticket home.....

Unknown said...

What a great photo and perfect words to go with it.

Noe Noe Girl...A Queen of all Trades. said...

Love,love,love this picture of Annie! And I love you and all my Blisters! Here's to us gal pals!
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Meg McCormick said...

aaaand... AMEN to that!

Country Girl said...

Clink! Toasting to you. Have a great weekend, friend.

Joanie said...

Perfect!!! Love that post!

Snooty Primadona said...

Hello. I think I knew this all along! Thanks for the reminder!