Keeping Friends Close Decreases Stress Levels In Women, Says Study

Keeping Friends Close Decreases Stress: According to researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, communicating with female friends decreases Cortisol levels for women across the lifespan.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that controls mood, motivation, and fear. It is the main stress hormone of the body and is known as nature's built-in alarm system. An increase in this hormone might lead to blood sugar imbalance, high blood pressure, low immunity and many other negative effects.

However, in a study titled “What are friends for? The impact of friendship on communicative efficiency and cortisol response during collaborative problem solving among younger and older women,” published in the Journal of Women and Aging in May this year, it is found that communicating with female friends keeps cortisol levels in the body low for life.

Michelle Rodrigues, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University, and is the main author of the study, said that women have evolved an alternative mechanism in response to stress, and in order to deal with stress, women can befriend female peers.

The study was done in collaboration with a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow Si On Yoon, who was observing the cognitive mechanisms of natural conversation across the lifespan, including healthy younger and older adults. Si On Yoon who is also one of the co-authors of the study, and an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Iowa said that her research program was focused on language measures in social interactions and she worked with Dr Rodrigues on the research.

Here are the 5 key findings of the study:

1. Young adult women communicate more efficiently with familiar partners as compared to the people they do not know and are a little more hesitant trying to do that.
2. Older women can easily communicate with strangers.
3. Older adult women choose to spend time with people who matter to them, but they have the social skills to interact with unfamiliar people if and when they choose to.
4. Across both age groups, the people working with familiar partners had consistently lower levels of cortisol than those who were working with unfamiliar partners.
5. Friendship has the same effect throughout the lifespan of a person and familiar partners and friendships buffer stress.