2024-02-14 10:50:00
Love and healthy friendships that help us grow play an important role in increasing the quality of life and emotional well-being of people. A loved one (friend or partner) can be, in difficult moments, the ear that listens to us, the shoulder to rest on and the unprejudiced perspective that we need. And friendship and love are present in all cultures. Without friends we could not survive, or perhaps in ancient times the human being did not need his tribe to protect himself?
In short, friendship and love help create bonds between people, which increases a sense of belonging, improves self-confidence, and helps reduce stress and anxiety. But that’s only part of what friendship and love do for people’s mental health. The opposite of friendship and the establishment of social and intimate relationships is loneliness, a condition that is associated with greater depression, isolation, greater likelihood of mental illness, loss of social skills and greater propensity for accidents, suicides and deaths. Here I detail some benefits of friendship for mental health:
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♦ Increase your happiness. Genuine friendship is a source of spiritual elevation and company that multiplies joys and subtracts sadness. Additionally, studies indicate that socializing with happy people also makes you more enthusiastic and happier. The mere fact of socializing and seeking to make friends is already reported as a way to improve mood.
♦ Reduce your stress levels. The opportunity that friendship provides to talk, share visions, opinions, experiences and ideas in a safe environment, without prejudice or censorship, allows us to reduce stress and anxiety and increase well-being. A conversation with friends will help your body feel less stress. Additionally, friendship plays an important role in how people manage and handle stress. After intimate conversations with friends, people tend to reduce their stress and report high levels of calm.
♦ Increase your sense of belonging and purpose. Membership in groups is one of the great virtues of friendship. The sense of belonging, familiarity, and therefore, purpose, increases by being surrounded by people who share your same motivations and knowing that you have good friends.
♦ Increases and strengthens self-esteem and confidence. The appreciation, warmth and physical closeness that the other provides reinforces your self-esteem and sense of self-esteem. Likewise, praise, positive reinforcement of behavior, knowing that you are appreciated reinforces positive ideas about yourself and creates rewarding companies to rely on throughout life.
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♦ Provides vital skills and experiences. Many of the good memories of childhood and youth are with friends. Friendship is a source of generating life experiences and contributes significantly to determining future patterns in relationships, as well as the type of personality, character and way of relating. It also nourishes your world and your ideas with new perspectives. It also teaches you to be more tolerant, to accept others, to be open, empathetic and generous, to share achievements and work as a team.
♦ Strengthens the immune system. Scientific evidence has been found related to social support and the immune system. These studies indicate that the greater the support network, that is, friendship, the more strengthened the immune system is and the more adequate anti-inflammatory responses, which leads to faster wound healing and the prevention and reduction of associated risks. to cardiovascular diseases, arthritis and different types of cancer.
♦ Friendship helps you connect with reality and change bad habits. Good friends will help you be a better person and overcome your problems and bad habits to achieve your dreams and projects. Friendship that shares hobbies, sports and recreational activities, and healthy points of view helps you achieve goals. Furthermore, good friends are the grounding cable that people sometimes need to advance in their development and leave harmful situations or habits behind. It also helps you deal with trauma or moments of grief such as a divorce, job loss, or death of a loved one. The short definition of friendship is people who are with you through thick and thin. In bad times, friendship is a balm for suffering and emotional pain. The company of a loved one who respects and loves us makes a difference when it comes to facing difficult situations such as loss, illness or death.
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♦ Improves general health. A relationship between friendships and good health in general is also reported. Because? Because meaningful friendships promote healthy lifestyles and encourage changing unhealthy habits. The influence of friends is powerful. If used for good, it can increase people’s physical and emotional health, makes them believe and contributes to a reduction in risks associated with poor diet, excessive alcohol and drug intake, obesity and depression.
Glimpse into the brain in love
Like friendship, love of any type (romantic, familial, fraternal, platonic, spiritual) allows people to increase their well-being by creating a more positive perception of themselves. Trust is strengthened with good love. Attachment patterns and secure bonds are also built in everyday life.
In fact, the feeling of healthy love also contributes to the reduction of stress and anxiety. Meanwhile, bad love or unhealthy emotional relationships affect one’s relationship, contribute to the construction of insecure attachments and generate greater stress, instability and anxiety in people.
In short, love is good for mental health because brain chemistry is positively affected and temporarily changed by loving actions and relationships.
When experiencing the feeling of love, people’s brains secrete chemical substances and hormones: dopamine and oxytocin mainly, which generate pleasant physical and psychological emotions of calm and affection. A combo that encourages affection, the establishment of relationships and the strengthening of bonds.
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Love is a human emotion that everyone, regardless of culture, gender, age or religion, can experience. Love is experienced in very diverse and personal ways, in addition to being a natural source of pleasure, comfort and well-being for mental health. Why is love good for your mental health? Recent studies have reported that people in love or in stable relationships have longer lives compared to those who are lonely. That is, there is a relationship between love, good health and longevity in part because reciprocal love helps ward off depression and sadness, and move closer to happiness and self-realization.
The connection and feeling of love on a daily basis is identified in the long term with greater well-being and the good news is that it can be cultivated and pursued proactively. The moments of love and connection that a person can feel with a stranger when helping them on the street, a feeling of self-actualization when finishing a job, a moment of tenderness when playing with a child, an awe when contemplating nature or even during Moments of spirituality allow us to connect in different ways, but ultimately, they make it possible for love to manifest itself as a sensation and emotion, generating a state of good mood, relaxation, positivity and comfort.
This Valentine’s week we wish you not only to share a moment of joy with your special person, but also to have in your daily life many ways, people, actions and experiences that make you feel alive thanks to good friendship and good love. Happy day of love and friendship!
The author is a psychiatrist, medical director of the Pan American Hospital and president of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists of Puerto Rico
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