Women Friendships
Sent to me by a friend...I thought you'd like to read this.... ![]()
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 Biobehavioral 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 release 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 that people 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 famed Nurses' 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
confidants 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 Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's
Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). The following paragraph is, in my
opinion, very, very true and something all women should be aware of and NOT
put our female friends on the back burners.
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.
-----------------------------------
Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A.
R., & Updegraff, J. A. Female
Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight' Psychol Rev,
107(3):41-429.
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 Biobehavioral 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 release 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 that people 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 famed Nurses' 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
confidants 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 Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's
Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). The following paragraph is, in my
opinion, very, very true and something all women should be aware of and NOT
put our female friends on the back burners.
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.
-----------------------------------
Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A.
R., & Updegraff, J. A. Female
Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight' Psychol Rev,
107(3):41-429.
