I was so taken by the implications of this article, found in The New York Times, that I am paraphrasing it as this weeks' offering. It's implications are so far reaching that I believe every woman and man should have the opportunity to think about what this research may mean in their own life.

“Women respond to stress differently than men do. Women also have different ways to fight it: each other. 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. But 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 finding 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. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers. Researchers now suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than only to "fight or flight." It seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress response 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 because testosterone--which men produce in high levels when they're under stress-seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen seems to enhance it.

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 women to care for children and hang out with other women, but the tend and befriend notion may help to 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. Friends help us live better and longer. One reputable study indicates 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 a close friend or confidante 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 impairment 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? To my way of thinking, that seems to be the most important question each of us must answer.

Life is too hard to do alone,

Dr. D.

Dorree Lynn, PH.D.

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