Friendships Between Women: A Sensational Way to Combat Stress

Friendship is extremely healthy and beneficial for everyone. It can even help women to combat stress!

Reviewed and approved by psychologist Valeria Sabater.

Written by Valeria Sabater

Last update: 27 May, 2022

We could give you a thousand arguments as to why friendships between women are beneficial, healthy and necessary.  But even then, we’d fall short.

However, there are many studies and work done in the field of social psychology and health that show us something much more particular and interesting about this phenomenon.

Friendships between women have a much more intense and positive impact than friendship between men, so much so that that feeling of connection and established mutual understanding is a sufficient way to reduce stress and anxiety.

Nonetheless, it’s important to get something clear: the positive effects on our health and well-being is not caused by having many “friends” but instead having authentic and meaningful friendships with women that understand and support us.

In today’s article,  we want to talk about this.

In a world of emptiness, deep connections are vital

We have dozens of friends in our social networks. Furthermore, we communicate through instant messaging systems. We use emoticons to represent the emotions that we don’t express as easily later in real life.

We create WhatsApp group and say good morning and good night through these types of platforms. Yet, the more interaction we have, the greater the emptiness.

A satisfactory personal life might be missing, where special people surround us. These are people who make us happy face to face, who make us feel safe with their closeness. These are special people who we can offer friendships and mutual understanding in exchange for nothing.

In turn, a sensational way to combat this well-known existential emptiness is to foster good social relations. When talking about women, friendships are especially important.

Women react to stress differently

In order to understand how and in what way both men and women deal with stress, we must delve into the ever fascinating world of neuropsychology.

• When a woman experiences anxiety and stress for a long time, a true “cocktail” of neurotransmitters flows through her bloodstream. Cortisol and epinephrine make up this cocktail.
• This raises her blood pressure and blood sugar.
• For women, there’s a hormone that simultaneously acts as a neurotransmitter. It is key to reducing the impact of the aforementioned scenario. This is oxytocin.

Oxytocin, in addition to counteracting the production of cortisol and epinephrine, makes women calm, reduces their fear and gives them a pleasant sense of security.

However, stress impacts men in a more complex way.

• To begin with, there’s one aspect that’s in itself interesting: men produce fewer amounts of oxytocin.
• Because they don’t benefit from the presence of oxytocin as much as women, they experience the fight or flight response more profoundly.
• They also, on average, engage more with emotional restraint. For instance, they don’t open up as easily to talk about that intimate and personal universe that are their emotions.

All this makes stress a deeper and chronic aspect for men.

Women friendships, a great supplier of oxytocin

Women have a biological need to “connect” with others, to build links based on empathy and recognition.

All this is undoubtedly explained by the high presence of oxytocin in the female brain. This is a hormone that aims to promote care and attention for others.

• So, when life becomes a roller coaster due to stress and fear, women seek friendships with other women to regulate those fears and to achieve that comforting mutual understanding, which helps them to calm down and analyze their problems objectively.
• Moreover, it should be noted that friendships are a dimension that gives women different and at the same time, complementary, aspects of a romantic relationship or a relationship with a relative.
• If you have a solid and meaningful friendship, you know that you’ll be able to vent your thoughts and emotions to them without being judged; this is the same thing you can do when opening up to a family member.
• You also know, in turn, that your friends are not obligated to solve your problems. It’s not their function nor do they seek to have it. What you need is to feel heard and understood.

To conclude, a positive, solid and respectful circle of friends is key to a healthy and fulfilling life for all of us.

However, for women, this emotional bond is more intense and necessary. This is because, let’s face it, nothing is as therapeutic as having a cup of coffee with your old friends. You’ll forget about your problems straight away. 

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