10 health benefits of friendship

Friends are essential in life. They are with us to celebrate the good times and to overcome the bad ones. But friends are much more important than you think. Several studies have shown that friendship has real benefits on our physical and psychological health. Do you want to know what they are?

1. Help build self-esteem and make us feel secure and protected. Thus, for good self-esteem and confidence, it is important to have a solid network of friends from childhood.
    
2. Improve our mood. When we share good times and experiences with friends, our body releases oxytocin, also called the hormone of happiness, which increases the feeling of well-being. Therefore, in difficult situations, it is better to be surrounded by friends to improve our emotional state.
    
3. Help make decisions. Sharing our problems with friends helps us relieve anxiety. In addition, friends can give us advice and a more realistic view of the situation, helping us to think of new ways to solve one problem.
    
4. Reduce stress. When we have a problem or concern, our body increases the production of cortisol, a hormone that is secreted in stressful situations. Numerous studies have confirmed that when we are with friends, less cortisol is secreted, which reduces stress and anxiety.
    
5. Improve mental health, reduce the risk of depression, and prevent the development of some diseases, such as dementia.
    
6. Help aging better and live longer. Lack of social relationships reduces life expectancy as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Also, not having friends is more dangerous than not exercising and twice as bad as being obese.
    
7. Having friends helps being more empathetic. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. Having a strong network of friends and sharing good and bad experiences with them helps to be more empathetic, since we care about others and try to help them.
    
8. Help to have a positive attitude and view on life. A good friend always tries to make us see the positive side of things and encourages us to overcome the daily challenges.
    
9. Enhances social cohesion. Having a group of friends makes a person feel part of a community and participate in its activities.
    
10. Friends help us to accept ourselves. Honest and sincere friends openly tell us what our strengths and weaknesses are, if we have made a mistake or have behaved badly. In this way, they help us to accept ourselves as we are.