Reseach shows we really do need soul sisters . . .

UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN
By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special.They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe ourtumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, andhelp us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.

Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actuallycounteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience ona daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond tostress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make andmaintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that hasturned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upsidedown."

Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that whenpeople experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs thebody to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explainsLaura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of BiobehavioralHealth at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's anancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased acrossthe planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioralrepertoire than just "fight or flight." "In fact," says Dr. Klein, "itseems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stressresponses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or flight" response andencourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead.

When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studiessuggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stressand produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur inmen", says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone---which men produce in highlevels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects ofoxytocin. Estrogen", she adds, "seems to enhance it."

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was madein a classic "aha!" moment shared by two women scientists who weretalking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when thewomen who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned thelab, had coffee, and bonded", says Dr. Klein." When the men werestressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day tofellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress researchis on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knewinstantly that we were onto something."

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientistafter another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs.Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that womenrespond to stress differently than men has significant implications forour health. It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the waysthat oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with otherwomen, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein andTaylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after studyhas found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering bloodpressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.

"There's no doubt," says Dr. Klein, "that friends are helping us live."In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had nofriends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In anotherstudy, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut theirrisk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better.The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found thatthe more friends women had, the less likely they were to developphysical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to beleading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, theresearchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes wasas detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight!

And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the womenfunctioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in theface of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friendconfidante were more likely to survive the experience without any newphysical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those withoutfriends were not always so fortunate.

Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much ofour life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to ourlife, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a questionthat also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of"Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women'sFriendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998)."Every time we get overly busywith work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendshipswith other women," explains Dr. Josselson. "We push them right to theback burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source ofstrength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to haveunpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that womendo when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience."

Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis,B. P., Gruenewald,T. L., Gurung, R.A.R., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000)."Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, NotFight or Flight",Psychological Review, 107(3), 41-429.