On Friendship Among Women

UCLA Study "On Friendship Among Women"
By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are.
By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research--most of it on men--upside down.

Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D, now an Assistant Professor of Bio-behavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; in fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest 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're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen; she adds, seems to enhance it.

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.

It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but 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.
There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live longer. In one study, for example, researchers found thatpeople who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better.

The Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight!

And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate.

Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of BestFriends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998).

Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. 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're with other women. It's a very healing experience.

Letting Go

I recently let go of a friendship that was toxic for me. I have known that for years, and have even let go a few times before. But I always came back with forgiveness because it has been a long-standing friendship of 22 years.

In my gut, I knew the friendship was bad. It was completely dysfunctional in almost every way. But it sucked me in - mostly because I have needed a lot of support these last few years with my situation with my husband.

Looking back, I realize that I have leaned on someone who never had my best interest at heart and who often gave me bad information.

It has been a sad week for me of letting go. But ultimately I know that this is for the best.

When you hold on so tightly to the bad, there is no room for the good. Our friendship was a weed that was taking over my life.

Taking a Break...

I took a little break from the blog this morning. I had an upsetting argument with a friend and I am re-evaluating a lot of things right now.

As much as my husband has hurt me on many levels, he is still probably my best friend and the one I go to for sorting out things like this. He has been in AA for a long time and he does have some good insight as to what a healthy relationship entails, even if he doesn’t always act that way himself.

I am very conflicted about where to go from here.

I wanted to start to blog to sort through a lot of issues in my life but I don’t really feel any closer to resolving anything.

I’m just very sad about where life has taken me. It seems like most of us still follow the same path we know from our families of origin regardless of how much we try to change.

And I’m frustrated even with myself on that end. I have read so much, listened to so many lectures, gone to church/mosque, therapy, retreats, meditated, prayed, written it all down…you name it…and I am still me.

And many of my “mistakes” in life have been the same mistakes that my parents and grandparents have made.

So I suppose I should expect the same from everyone else.

I am very hard on myself. But I am also hard on everyone else. My expectations just kill me.

Tired of Alcoholics

I am very tied of alcoholics tonight.

Tonight one of my dearest friends came for dinner from out of town, and to spend the night. My kids and I have been looking forward to her visit for months. She has lived over 2000 miles away for over 7 years, so I don't see her often. But we are always texting and emailing so we are very, very close.

She brought a friendship necklace for me with her tonight and I really love it. We had a lovely evening together....but a few hours in her step mom called and told her that her dad had been missing for four hours. And while I empathized with her I felt myself angry with her dad.

Why can't he just let her live her life? Why can't he let her enjoy her evening?

My husband called right after she left and I snapped at him.

He said but I'm in recovery.

Well, you weren't 3 weeks ago when you didn't come home all night long.

Or the week after when you didn't come to your daughters 3rd birthday.

So this all hits pretty close to home for me.

And I'm wondering if there's any peace in alcoholic families or if my kids will have to go look for their dad in a ditch or a hospital someday.

I told my friend how I felt and I think we understand each other. We've been friends for 22 years. I told her I was not mad at her. And I'm not. I just am frustrated that one more thing was ruined by an alocoholic.

I'm sorry for her and I'm sorry for me. Because this is just one more instance where an alcoholic has screwed up our night. And it has happened to both of us so many times.

And does he really care?

Probably not.