friends make your life better

What Are Friends For? A Longer Life:

Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

Thanks, blogging friends, for making the weight loss/getting fit mountain into a small hill.

Added: Jane Fonda writes about the importance of friendships via Cher (just cher'ing a bit of myself).

Knowing now how important friendships are (they can actually help keep you healthy, even speed up healing after surgery), here is what I would do if I found myself without friends (and this is directed especially to the friend who said he/she had no friends and wondered how I had so many): I would join a club or the YWCA? YMCA that does things that interest me like lectures on foreign policy, painting, sculpting, outdoor activities, concerts; join a nondenominational church; become a volunteer at a senior citizen center or church group or library group or join the Peace Corps. In other words, I would intentionally put myself in a situation where I might meet people who share my interests and then, once there, I would make a point of asking people questions about themselves rather than talking about myself. If you are shy, say so. “I am a shy person, forgive me. But I am interested in making friends and I would love to know about you. Have you always lived here?” etc. Here’s a piece of good advice: it’s better to be interested than to be interesting.

~♥~