Fwd: Women's health and friendship

[Guest guest]

Another very interesting study---hope the guys will excuse

this-----but we do know that MOST CGs are female.

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>> Subject: Women's friendships

>> 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 5 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, " explains

>> Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an assistant professor of biobehavioral health at

>> Pennsylvania State University in State College and one of the study's

>> authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were

>> chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers. Now the researchers

>> suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just " fight or

>> flight. " In fact, says Dr. Klein, 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, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone -- which men produce

>> in high levels when they're under stress -- seems to reduce the effects of

>> oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.

>>

>> The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in

>> a classic " aha! " moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one

>> day in a lab at UCLA. " There was this joke that when the women who worked in

>> the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and

>> bonded, " says Dr. Klein. " When the men were stressed, they holed up

>> somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher

>> that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the

>> data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto

>> something. "

>>

>> The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist

>> after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein

>> and discovered that by not including women in stress research,

>> scientists had made a huge mistake: 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 us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the

>> " tend and befriend " notion developed by Drs. Klein and may 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. " There's no doubt, " says Dr. Klein, " that friends are helping

>> us live longer. "

>>

>> In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends

>> increased their risk of death over a 6-month

>> period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year

>> period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us

>> live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School

>> found 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 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?

>> That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, PhD,

>> coauthor of " Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's

>> Friendships " (Three Rivers Press, 1998). " Every time we get overly busy with

>> work and family, the first thing we do is let go

>> of friendships with other women, " explains Dr. Josselson. " We push them

>> right to the back burner. That's really a mistake, because women are such a

>> source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to

>> have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that

>> women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience. "