Robert Oliva – Have you ever wondered what really makes you healthy? Is it the vitamins you take or the food you eat? Is it the exercise you do and the medical care you get? All of these things are surely important. But I believe there is a hidden dimension to your health that you may have overlooked or ignored: your friendships.

Friendships can make the difference between enjoying a long healthy life and just suffering through it.

Getting and staying healthy may very well depend on the quality, quantity, and resiliency of your friendships.

 Is Friendship the Forgotten Key to Health?

Scientists have been trying to unravel how our friendships affect our health for a long time.

Lisa Rankin, MD, in her groundbreaking work Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, states:

“When you feel loved, supported, and nurtured in a relationship, your mind experiences fewer stress responses and elicits more relaxation responses, and the physiology of the body responds accordingly.”

She goes on to explain how this nurturing extends even to the doctor/patient relationship:

“When a patient who imbues the physician with positive meaning feels tended, trusting, reassured, and nurtured, the stress response is aborted. The relaxation response is induced. The patient starts to get better right away.” Continue reading →