I was driving home the other night and heard a song that took me back 10 yrs to a special time that I shared with a close girlfriend with whom I’ve

since lost touch. Sad part is that I didn’t pick up the phone and call her. I thought of her, missed our old times, but didn’t reach out. How often do we do that? How many times do we send or receive a text that say “miss you, thinking of you?” How much time passes in between luncheons with girlfriends, coffee with your mom, or even an easy glass of wine for a pity party. (That’s a hall pass to bitch & only a girlfriend can relate to that kind of a session).

My daughter asked me just yesterday, “How come you never sleep with your mom?” I thought that was so cute! It made me schedule a sleepover with my mom. Play dates are NOT just for kids you know. I love time shared with my girlfriends, I need it, enjoy it, and I am better because of it. I am blessed to have amazing women in my life that I value. I must admit that I do NOT see them enough. My posse of 4 monopolizes most of my time. But I do carve out my moments. There is nothing like a little girltime.

This is for all of us, woman to woman, we NEED each other. See below that was passed on to me from a friend…

“I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection – the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.

Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged – not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!

So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Sooooo let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health.”