Our relationships with other women keep us healthy and sane

When my father was sick in hospital and I was spending gruelling days with him, I would come home to my girlfriend Sophie’s house where I was staying. She would greet me at the door dressed casually in pyjamas and a cardy and would order me to get into mine – it was usually around 6 – and then she’d sit me down to a beautifully cooked meal. The stress of the day would just roll off me.

When I had the flu recently, which completely knocked me sideways, my girlfriend Terry would call me every day. She too had the lurgy but was a day ahead of me and she wanted me to know there was hope just round the corner, that the torture would end.

My whole life, I’ve had an eclectic circle of girlfriends in every place I have lived in, who have fulfilled my every need for friendship. When I was coming to grips with being a stay at home mother in a college town in Pennsylvania just after 9/11, my girls kept me entertained and stimulated. I truly believe they kept me healthy and sane.

And there’s even research from Stanford University to prove it if you do an internet search. For a woman, one of the best things she can do for her health is to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends, it says.

Apparently women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Meanwhile from a physical point of view, quality time with your girlfriend helps us to create more serotonin, a neurotransmitter which helps fight depression and provides us with a general feeling of well being.

I asked clinical psychologist, Jo Lamble to give me some more insights. “One of the most important things our girlfriends provide us with is empathy,” she says.

“We can be ourselves more with women than we can with men. We don’t have to impress, there is no need to flirt. And the more ourselves we can be, the closer we will be to our girlfriends.”

Are woman friends particularly important at times of stress, I ask her.

“When we are at our most vulnerable, from stress, depression, grieving or a relationship breakup, we desperately need the support of our girlfriends,” says Jo. “They are the ones who will love us no matter what and will sit and listen to us talk about how we feel instead of doing the male thing of problem solving.”

I quite often turn down a girlfriend for a walk because I have a pilates class – should I be saying yes, I ask Jo.

“Do both,” she says. “Exercising is good for everything. Combining exercise with a catch-up with a girlfriend is wonderful.”

Of course we’ve all had girlfriends who actually aren’t that good for us.

“If you feel worse about yourself every time you spend time with a particular girlfriend, then she is not a friend – ditch her,” says Jo.