Did you know that positive friendships can actually benefit your mental and physical health? It’s true. In our society, we generally tend to place more emphasis on romantic or familial relationships, and that’s normal. However, positive, emotionally fulfilling friendships are just as important. There is even research to suggest that friendships can help us stay healthy, live longer lives, and find purpose in life.
For National Best Friends Day (June 8), we wanted to shed light on how friendships can guide us in our quest for wellness. Research from places like the Mayo Clinic show that good friends can help reduce stress and help you avoid significant health problems in the long run, including cardiovascular issues, high blood pressure, and certain mental health disorders like depression.
Older adults, in particular, were found to live longer and healthier lives if they maintained friend connections later in life, as opposed to those who were more isolated. Though the research on friendship is not as robust as in other life areas, it is still quite promising, and encourages us to think about how we cultivate and maintain friendships.
Good friends can be a pillar of strength and support in difficult times, like going through a divorce, experiencing the death of a loved one, or having a chronic illness. They are also helpful in encouraging you to make positive changes in life, like quitting smoking, taking up exercise, leaving a toxic partner, etc.
This National Best Friends Day, we encourage you to take stock of your current friendships and take a moment to think about how much they mean to you. Invite your bestie out for lunch or brunch, go on a hike together, go to the beach, drive around singing out loud to your favorite songs - the possibilities are endless.
You can go a step further and show your bestie how much they mean to you with a meaningful gift. We love our entire Affirmations Collection featuring necklaces and bracelets that look like paperclip styles from afar, but in reality spell out empowering sayings. The “Honor The Goddess Within” piece is especially powerful.
Naturally, our entire Goddess Collection is a work of art. We have mythical and real-life historical Goddesses ranging from Athena to Ix Chel to Cleopatra to Pachamama to Harriet Tubman, and so much more. Have your bestie take our Goddess Quiz to find the Goddesses she connects with most, and consider purchasing the corresponding Goddess Pendant for her. You can even buy matching Goddess Pendants as a nod to the Best Friend heart-shaped necklaces that were so popular in the ‘90s. If you’re old enough to remember them, you may even have given them to a friend in middle school or high school.
Whatever you choose to do, give your friends a big ole hug today and be grateful for them!
