01.03.2021
“I love my husband, but it is nothing like a conversation with a woman that understands you. I grow so much from those conversations.” Beyonce
As women we think differently, act differently, solve problems differently and are often more emotionally driven than logically driven. We thrive on strong relationships with our female friends. These friendships give us an outlet to share our problems, thoughts, feelings, and triumphs with those we feel a close bond with.
The psychology behind female friendships is strong. In one study, women with early-stage breast cancer were four times more likely to die from cancer if they didn't have very many friends. Those with a larger group of friends with early-stage breast cancer had a much better survival rate.
A recent study suggests that support from friends does more, it can help our brains see the problem in a new way—or “look on the bright side”—better than if we tried to deal with it alone. Researchers at UCLA recruited 120 young women to observe how they coped with difficult feelings, using negative images to evoke those feelings. Seeing negative images did make people feel worse. The practice of reinterpreting, or looking on the bright side, helped alleviate their distress but it helped even more if people heard a reinterpretation from a friend.
“Emotion regulation is more effective when other people actively help us with it,” says lead author Razia Sahi.
Why is hearing a friend’s perspective so comforting? One version of the experiment found that it wasn’t just the presence of a friend that made a difference; listening to a friend counting numbers wasn’t more soothing to participants than counting in their own heads. Something about hearing the friend’s way of looking at things helped them recover.
Perhaps hearing a friend engage with whatever is troubling us makes us feel less alone, the researchers suggest. Or their perspective may just seem more plausible than anything positive we tell ourselves, which might seem like self-delusion or may be hard to come up with at all when we’re in the thick of it.
“We should lean into social support during negative experiences, since our friends are sometimes a lot better at regulating our emotions than we are at regulating them ourselves,” says Sahi.
Of course, looking on the bright side won’t work all the time. It can sometimes come off as callous—a friend dismissing our feelings and insisting that things aren’t as bad as we think. She suspects that it depends on what’s troubling us, how exactly they respond to it, and whether they’re offering other types of support, too, like a hug or some words of understanding.
This study adds to an interesting line of research suggesting that emotion regulation, which we often think of as a solo, introspective task, is actually very social. And allowing others to help us navigate our emotions actually serves as practice for them to regulate their own.
It’s not always easy to ask for support. We might judge ourselves if we can’t deal with our problems alone, or feel like we’re annoying our friends. But in the long run, we’re all better off if we support each other.
The beneficial effect of friendship is felt whether friends live near or far. Women feel they can count on their friends to pull through for them no matter what they are struggling within their lives. Women are each other’s emotional support system. From giving advice, being a shoulder to cry on, keeping secrets, lending a listening ear and boosting self-esteem, to developing strong and healthy female friendships is something all women can benefit from.
Treasure your female friends for as long as possible, as they are the backbone of your support system. If you haven’t caught up with a female friend in a while why not use that power and get in touch today?
