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Health & Fitness

BFFs R GFYH!

Best Friends Forever Are Good For Your Health!

     On her best-selling CD, Tapestry, Carole King sang the memorable song, “You’ve Got a Friend.”  Part of it states, “When you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand and nothing…is going right.  You just call out my name and you know where ever I am, I’ll come running…you’ve got a friend.”

     I’ve loved those lyrics for a long time.  They always make me feel comforted and good inside.  The words of that song are full of compassion.  Did you know that compassion is good for your health?

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     An on-going investigation by Nurses’ Health study revealed that “close friendships provide a buffer for stressful living that is likely to play out through your immune system, endocrine systems, allowing you to age healthier” (www.oprah.com/relationships/Talking-Cure-Benefits-of-Friends-Friendship-and-Health).

     This confirms earlier research from well-being psychologists Ed Diener and Martin Seligman which indicated that social connectedness not only promotes a greater sense of purpose and meaning, but is also a predictor of longer life, faster recovery from disease, and higher levels of happiness and well-being.

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     In a recent Huffington Post article, James R. Doty, MD, pointed to the above research and concluded, “While many pay attention to their diet and go to the gym regularly to improve their health, they don’t think of social connectedness this way.  Just like physical fitness, compassion can be cultivated and maintained.  As human beings, we will inevitably encounter suffering at some point in our lives.  However, we also have evolved very specific social mechanisms to relieve that pain: altruism and compassion.” 

     Doty continued, “It is not just receiving compassion that relieves our pain.  Stephanie Brown, professor at SUNY Stony Brook University and the University of Michigan, has shown that the act of experiencing compassion and helping others actually leads to tremendous mental and physical well-being for us as well.”

     What is compassion?  Doty defines it as, “the recognition of another’s suffering and a desire to alleviate that suffering.”  He further states, “often brushed off as a hippy dippy religious term irrelevant in modern society, rigorous empirical data supports the view of all major world religions: compassion is good.”

     Knowing that compassion contributes to our well-being, will we become more compassionate?  The Dalai Lama thinks so.  He told Ariana Huffington, “If we say, oh, the practice of compassion is something holy, nobody will listen.  If we say, warm-heartedness really reduces your blood pressure, your anxiety, your stress and improves your health, then people will pay attention.”

     Nineteenth-century Christian healer, Mary Baker Eddy, often wrote about the importance of compassion and love.  She urged those who practiced Christian healing, or any healers for that matter, to shun stolidity or indifference when treating the sick.  She wrote, “The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father’s loving-kindness” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pps. 365-366).   

     She found these qualities of patience and compassion vital, not only in relieving pain and suffering; but also in giving life a sense of worth and meaning.  She continued, “If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted” (p. 366).  These ideas, though voiced more than 100 years ago, are voiced today in the public discussion concerning what patients want – an approach to health care that includes listening and caring for them as people, not just as a case number.

     Think about it – your friendships can not only bring happiness to yourself and others, but also better health!  And if you don’t have the friends you would like, try being more compassionate.  It’s bound to bring better relationships into your life.  Because it’s true - being a BFF is GFYH - being a Best Friend Forever is Good For Your (and other’s) Health! 

 

Thomas (Tim) Mitchinson is a self-syndicated columnist writing on the relationship between thought, spirituality and health, and trends in that field.  He is also the media spokesman for Christian Science in Illinois.  Feel free to contact him at illinois@compub.org.

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