How Friendships Improve Your Mental Health

Self-care includes a multitude of different activities, such as staying active or reading to manage stress, and should also include looking at the quality of friendships. Maintaining meaningful friendships and removing negative ones, has an incredible impact on your health, as your closest friends can help boost your overall mental and physical health, and also help you reduce your stress. Find out now how your friendships can benefit your health, and how the quality of your friendships over the quantity is the most crucial element of any social circle.

How Do You Measure The Health Of Friendship?

One truth is there are two types of friends you can have in your life: a friend who is good or healthy for you, and a friend who is toxic and brings nothing but negativity into your life. Considering these two types of friends then, how do we measure the health of a friendship, or ‘frientimacy,’ as some experts call it? There are three elements when it comes to measuring the health of friendship including positivity, as in is there more good than bad; consistency, and are you both making an effort to connect; as well as vulnerability, and how much you are sharing with your friend. Experts agree that for us to feel we’re experiencing a positive friendship, there must be five positive feelings for every negative feeling we have when it comes to our friendships.

For instance, if you feel hurt due to a friend canceling plans on you or never initiating to connect with you on a regular basis, these negative feelings can easily outweigh the good. However, once you and your friend spend time together, it can easily put the situation into perspective and allow you to understand your friend better. Regardless, you need to find ways to lessen the stress you experience in a friendship, if there is any negativity, and to boost the positivity you experience with your friend and the benefits their friendship brings into your life for it to be a healthy and long-lasting friendship.