Friendship

Why Friendship Is Great For Your Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains

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“When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such  Read

Do you have 150 friends? Because that’s the average number of stable social relationships a person can maintain.

This number has been dubbed “Dunbar’s Number” after the scientist Robin Dunbar, who found an association between primate brain size and average social group size (and don’t forget, you’re a primate). Dunbar’s Number has been translated into the number of people you wouldn’t feel embarrassed inviting to join you for a coffee (or green juice) if you happened to bump into them in a cafe.

It’s a no-brainer that friendship is an essential ingredient in living a fulfilled life. But it turns out that neuroscience has some pretty compelling evidence for the power of friendship in maintaining brain health and well-being as we get older.

Neuroscience research shows that being socially connected protects the brain against the risk of developing dementia.

How does interacting with people make the brain resilient to aging?

Neuroscientists often talk about “cognitive reserve.” Cognitive reserve refers to how resilient the mind is to damage or decline of the brain. Think of it as a savings account for the functionality of our brain. It’s the ability to build up a resistance to mental decline and disease.

Having a healthy social life naturally involves thinking, feeling, sensing, reasoning and intuition. These mentally stimulating activities build up our reserve of healthy brain cells, and promote the formation of new connections, or synapses, between neurons.

Those good friends of yours are worth nurturing, because friends will help you live longer, too.

A meta-analysis of 148 studies, including 300,000 people studied over seven years, found that people with strong social relationships had an increased likelihood of survival (yep, they were less likely to die) than those with weaker social relationships.

Here’s how loneliness and lack of social connection compares to more well-known risk factors:

  • Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day
  • Equivalent to being an alcoholic
  • More harmful than not exercising
  • Twice as harmful as obesity

Brigham Young University Professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, lead author on the study, says, “When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks”

Another of the authors, Professor Timothy Smith, points out that modern conveniences and technology can lead some people to think that social networks aren’t necessary.

“We take relationships for granted as humans — we’re like fish that don’t notice the water,” Smith said. “That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health.”

60 Most Beautiful Friendship Quotes

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“There are still some wonderful people left in this world! They are diamonds in the rough, but they’re around! You’ll find them when you fall down– they’re the ones who pick you up, who don’t judge, and you had to fall down to see them! When you get up again, remember who your true friends are!” ~ C. JoyBell C.

60 Most Beautiful Friendship Quotes

What is life without honest, real and meaningful friendships? What is life without the love and companion of those who see the beauty, the greatness and the perfection that lies within you?

Here are 60 most beautiful Friendship Quotes, quotes that will most probably cause you to call your friends and tell them how much you love and adoooore them :)

Enjoy!

Real friends make TIME for you.

1. “I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” ~ Robert Brault

2. “If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

True friendship requires time and sincere effort. 

3. “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm & constant.” ~ Socrates

4. “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ~ C.S. Lewis

5. “Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. It is not enough to just say relationships are important; we must prove it by investing time in them. Words alone are worthless… Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is “T-I-M-E.” ~ Rick Warren

6. “Every friendship travels at sometime through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. Your sense of each other darkens and your presence is sore. If you can come through this time, it can purify with your love, and falsity and need will fall away. It will bring you onto new ground where affection can grow again.” ~ John O’Donohue

True friendship reveals itself through adversity. 

7. “In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.” ~ John Churton Collins

8. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

9. “The only good thing about times of adversity is that you realize who your real friends and fans are – and the rest go away – which in my mind is an OK thing.” ~ Pete Wentz

10. “You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.” ~ Elizabeth Taylor

Real friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together.

11. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” ~ Woodrow T. Wilson

12. “I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.” ~ Jon Katz

13. “Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life–and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.” ~ Dean Koontz

There are big ships and small ships. But the best ship of all is friendship.

14. “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” ~ Muhammad Ali

15. “True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island… to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.” ~ Baltasar Gracian

16. “A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.” ~Douglas Pagels

17. “Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend.” ~ Bill Watterson

A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

18. “The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention… A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

19. “True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.” ~ Dave Tyson Gentry

20. “The best kind of friend is the one you could sit on a porch with, never saying a word, and walk away feeling like that was the best conversation you’ve had.” ~ Author Unknown

21. “One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.” ~ John O’Donohue

Friends make life a lot more fun.

22. “You can always tell when two people are best friends because they’re always having way more fun than it makes sense for them to be having.” ~ Unknown

23. “I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.” ~ Charles R. Swindoll

24. “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” ~ Khalil Gibran

Real friends know how to play the role of a beautiful “enemy”.

25. “Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.” ~ Sicilian Proverb

26. “A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling.” ~ Arthur Brisbane

27. “I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” ~ Plutarch

28. “Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to tell you a loving lie.” ~Robert Brault

Friendship is cheaper than therapy.

29. “A good friend is cheaper than therapy.” ~ Author Unknown

True friends are can lift you up when your heart’s wings forgot how to fly.

30. “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” ~ Albert Schweitzer

31. “I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment, and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” ~ Dr. Brené Brown

32. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” ~ Henri Nouwen

33. “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” ~ Donna Roberts

To have a friend, is to be a friend.

34. “There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.” ~  Paramahansa Yogananda

35. “There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul.”~ Edith Wharton

36. “The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Real friends can grow separately without growing apart.

37. “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” ~ Elisabeth Foley

38. “Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” ~Ally Condie

39. “Best friends don’t necessarily have to talk every day. They don’t even need to talk for weeks. But when they do, it’s like they never stopped talking.” ~ Author Unknown

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.

40. “The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares. A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” ~ Arnold H. Glasow

True friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences.

41. “Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don’t say.” ~ Author Unknown

42. “One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.” ~ John O’Donohue

43. “Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.” ~ Gloria Naylor

Friendship in general.

44. “The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

45. “The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?” ~ Eugene Kennedy

46. “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

47. “You can make more friends in two months by being interested in other people than in two years of trying to get people interested in you.” ~ Dale Carnegie

48. “The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.” ~ Aristotle

49. “A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” ~ Arnold H. Glasgow

50. “Do not save your loving speeches For your friends till they are dead; Do not write them on their tombstones, Speak them rather now instead.” ~ Anna Cummins

51. “You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.” ~ Laurence J. Peter

52. “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” ~ Alice Walker

53. “Friends are the family you choose.” ~ Jess C. Scott

54. “I like friends who, when you tell them you need a moment alone, know enough not to stray too far.” ~ Robert Brault

55. “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” ~ Unknown

56. “It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” ~ Marlene Dietrich

57. “The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

58. “Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most.” ~American Proverb

59. “A true friend reaches for your hand and touches your heart.” ~ Attributed to Heather Pryor

60. “A good friend is a connection to life — a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.” ~ Lois Wyse

And these are 60 of the many precious quotes on friendships that I love so much. Do you have a favorite friendship quote that you would like to share with us? If you do, I would surely love to know which one it is. You can share it in the comment section below

What It Really Takes To Make Friends With Someone.

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“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” ~ Dale Carnegie,

Have you ever wondered what friendship really is? Do you often feel that it’s kind of a “black box”, and that no one really knows what’s inside it? Are you curious to discover what’s inside?

I always wondered about it, myself, as I was learning to make friends and become social. See, it’s when you struggle with loneliness day and night that you really commit to learning how to have the friends you want. That’s what I did, but you don’t have to. You can learn from me, starting right here in this article.

I would like to share with you a check-list you can use to go from strangers to friends with people.

An Encouraging Context

Before you make friends with someone, you have to meet them for the first time, and it has to take place in a good environment. What this means is that the context must encourage socializing and meeting new people. For example, networking events are good, bars and nightclubs are not.

When it comes to making friends, always focus on places where you can comfortably go to someone and introduce yourself. Public places, where people come with their existing friends, aren’t the best, as people don’t go there to meet new folks.

A Proper Situation

In order for you to make friends with a person, you both need to have enough time and energy to be able to socialize. For example, if they’re moving, having a baby, getting married, changing jobs, or just hanging out with too many friends already, then they just won’t have time for you.

What you can do here is consider places where others are out to meet new people. You’ll find people who actually have the time and energy to invest in new friendships. These can be trade shows, seminars, talks, cultural or charitable events, etc. These places even encourage networking. By going there, you’re improving your chances of meeting people who actually want to meet you.

Appropriate Friendship Skills

Social Skills: It’s true that social skills are important in general, but they’re especially important for making new friends. This particular phase of the friendship, the formation, is where some skills can make it, or break it.

These critical social skills are: Initiating and joining conversations, asking appropriate questions, showing interest in what others are saying, Proper eye contact, and respecting others’ personal space.

Engagement: This is a state that determines to others whether or not you’re open to making friends. Being responsive means that you appropriately answer the questions that people ask, with some enthusiasm. This shows that you’re interested, that you like them, and that you’re engaged in the conversation. People who give half-answers and who barely look at you when you talk to them aren’t regarded as friendly.

A Great Interaction

Similarities: having things in common is very important. It’s the factor that most predicts whether or not you’re going to be friends with someone. When we find people like us, we are validated, we feel that we’re “right”. We also love to have people that enjoy the same kind of weekend activities.

This is why I recommend that you join a community that revolves around a subject or hobby that you love. If you can’t find that, then look for what’s available in your local area, and join the one where people seem to share your attitude and values.

Mutual Liking: When you first meet someone, you both have to like each other to become friends. This entirely subjective aspect about first encounters shouldn’t scare you. What you can do here is always assume that you’re going to be liked, and that you generally like to meet new people.

When you hold these two mindsets, you automatically start to behave in a way that signals to other people that you like them, which makes them like you. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if they think you like them, they’ll start to like you.

Openness: This sounds like an expression out of a crime movie, but it’s not. It’s a principle that happens in almost every new friendship. If you’re going to be friends with someone, there is a level of trust to establish; both of you have to disclose some things to each other.

You can start by revealing something quirky, funny, or weird about yourself, and see how they respond. Start by something not that weird, don’t disclose heavy secrets right away. This is like a dance, you disclose something, they replicate, then you disclose something a little heavier, and so on. This exchange of secrets means that you’re going to trust each other; it literally glues two people and makes them friends.

Wrapping Up

This check-list gives you more clarity on what needs to happen between two people before they become friends. You can use it to understand why some friendships worked in your past, while others didn’t. If you want to have great friends that care for you and support you, instead of feeling lonely and isolated, I recommend that you see friendship as a skill, and start learning it.

Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed.

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For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality..

stihl-deathbed-scene

I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Manydeveloped illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way,you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying..

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happine

 

How to Get a New Circle of Friends.

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As you have probably learned already, it’s not enough to be optimistic and successful, you also need to be in a success-inspiring environment. The most important element of that environment is the people in your life, and especially friends.

friends-of

If you’re surrounded with negative, or non-ambitious people, you’ll always have to work twice as hard to keep your success and optimism level.

In this article, I want to share with you the strategy that you can use to create the fun and inspiring circle of friends that you want.

What To Expect From Making New Friends

As you start making new friends, you benefit in three realms: intellectual, emotional, and physical.

In the intellectual realm, great friends give you access to advice, connections, critical thinking, quality feedback, and challenging you to reach explore your potential to make more money and be more successful.

In the emotional realm, great friends give you more motivation; they believe in you and your dreams; they tolerate and understand you; they remind you to be light-hearted and have fun; they cheer you up during life’s darkest moments, and celebrate your highest successes with you.

In the physical realm, with great friends, you go on trips, travels, and adventures together, you enjoy your weekly dose of fun and relaxation, you get to play and be silly like as if you’re a kid again, and discover loads of new places, experiences, and maybe even new hobbies.

With interesting and fun friends, not only can you be yourself, but you also get the support to be your best self!

How Do You Build A Circle Of Friends: A Two-Part Formula

After years of learning and experimenting with various strategies for making friends and building my social life from scratch, I have come up with a simple, yet powerful formula that works. This can work for you if you want to meet new people, and enjoy the benefits of having an empowering circle of friends.

1. Explore The New

As I always say, “If you’re not making new friends, you’re making less.” As people move, get in new relationships, change careers, or habits, you start to have less and less people to meet. This is why you absolutely need to be making new friends.

To make it easy to meet new people, you can meet them through an interest group, or a club. To make it easier, join a club that is about something you love. To make it even easier, join the organizing team of that club or interest group, which will make it very easy for you to talk and get to know people.

2. Strengthen The Old

In the second part of the formula, you keep up with the people you meet, and introduce them to old friends that you still want to keep in your social circle. If you want to have an entirely new social circle, then introduce these new friends to each other, arrange plans, where you bring them together.

If people stick together because of you, they’ll always be somewhat grateful to you for that introduction. Don’t worry about them being friends and leaving you behind, only the losers do that, and as we said, you’re after great people here.

This is critical because if you bring people together, they’ll start making plans and bringing new people, as well. If you only know people separately, you’ll always have to do all the work of calling, and making plans.

If you adopt this two-part strategy, you’ll soon have more friends than you expected, and start being more selective when choosing friends.

How To Start Making Friends Today

If you’re eager to start building a great social life, filled with the friends you want, then I recommend that you start by doing two things:

First, go to your calendar and put a weekly marker on Tuesday or Wednesday evening. That marker will remind you to take an hour to email, text, or call anyone you want to meet in the coming days or weeks, or anyone new you met recently and want to see again.

Why does this work? Because you don’t have to think about it, you just do it once a week, and never worry about people forgetting about you, just because you forgot to stay in touch.

Second, go look for a club, an interest group, an expat community, or an organization that seems interesting and fun. Subscribe to one or two of those and attend their next events. If you see that the people there are the kind with whom you can enjoy time and learn new things, then you found a winner.

If you find a great expanding community that holds regular social events, then stick with it. That’s where you’ll be meeting new and interesting friends.

Don’t Fail At Making Friends…

When you’re staying in touch and arranging plans with good friends on a weekly basis, and including new ones, you’re really in a position where you literally can’t fail at friendship. You’re also preventing yourself from ever feeling lonely or misunderstood.

Source: Purpose Fairy