The Lifelong Power of Good Friendships
How to seek and keep the most important element you need for a long and healthy life
Hello there - in a rushed world,
Here comes your weekly permission to Un-rush and Stress Less.
Timeless insights and impulses on how the power of slow helps you grow - in a rushing world crushing your life
If you enjoy reading this post from my Newsletter Un-Rush, feel free to share it with your friends and click the❤️ button, so more people can discover it on Substack. Thank you!
INSIGHT
You figured out that friendships are the best ingredient for a healthy and long life
Now you wonder how to find them. Here is help
The most significant thing you can do for your well-being is to invest as much time and effort as you can into building friendships and nurturing the relationships you have with the people in your life, your family, friends, community, and colleagues.
Friends in your life contribute to your well-being, longevity, sanity, inner balance, and strength.
Research has shown that social ties are crucial to our brain health. People who are more socially connected to family and friends live longer than people who are less well-connected.
How do you build and maintain friendships?
Take some inspiration on how to make and how to keep friends.
Input On How To Make Friends
Awareness Is The First Step
Have you thought about how important friends are in your life?
In the past decade, I realized how much I appreciate my friends. Friendships were always important to me, but unconsciously. Reflecting on where I want to go with my work and what lifestyle I intend to live, I wrote down spending time with friends as an important part of my life.
Being consciously aware of that helps with the decision-making when it comes to pondering how to spend your time.
Are you aware of the role friends play in your life?
Find The Other
Joining clubs or communities that are connected to your passion, interests, hobbies, and sports activities always offers a good opportunity to meet like-minded people and find new friends. This can be an online community or much better a real-life community or club.
Use The Other
Surround yourself with people who are good at contacting new people. If you are with a person, a partner, spouse, or friend who has the natural ability or desire to make and maintain friends, you obviously benefit from that as they most likely become your friends as well.
My husband has a great circle of friends that he developed throughout his life from his sports activities and work, which took him around the world where he met many different people. He formed long-lasting friendships along the way. Obviously, I met a lot of those friends and I “benefit” from those existing friendships.
But here is the thing.
With some of the new friends you meet through your partner or your friends, you can build your own connection. You never know, you might share a similar passion, thought, or topic, so start creating your own friendship with that person.
Go To The Same Place
Find a café, bar, or restaurant you enjoy and keep going back to it when you notice that there are nice and interesting people gathering regularly. After moving to a new town, we started frequenting a small bar/restaurant we liked and where many locals hang out. Over time, we formed some wonderful new friendships.
Input On How To Maintain Friends
Here are some ideas on how you care for your friends and give them your attention. And, with anything else in life, the things that are important to you, you just do, and it doesn’t feel like an effort or time waster, or a burden.
Special Occasions
Remember your friends’ or colleagues’ birthday and send wishes. The various messaging options or social media have made it even easier to remember special occasions and send wishes.
People you are very close with, call them! It makes a huge difference. These days, we do everything over text and voice messages, so a phone call is a nice change.
Distance Is Not An Obstacle
Distance is not a problem in maintaining friendships. It’s all about your willingness and how far up on your priority list you’ve written “caring for my friends”.
No matter where I lived in the world, it was always important to me to travel regularly back to my home country to see my family and friends. I ensured that I spent quality time with whomever I could connect with, and it consistently proved to be a source of enrichment.
Don’t make distance an obstacle. Traveling has become so much easier and digitalization wiped out distance when it comes to connecting via a screen.
Think Long-Term
Giving your friends attention means spending time. It is valuable time invested.
Too often, we feel too busy to see or talk to a friend. We have too much to do and don’t think we can squeeze in a coffee chat or a hang-out with a friend. You might want to think long-term. One day, it will be gratifying to have devoted time to spending time with your friends and to know that you are not alone in the chaos or joy of life.
When You Give, You Attract
If you are a good caretaker of existing friendships, new friends will automatically come your way. Because you send out a positive vibe by caring for your existing, good friendships, and this will attract new friends to you.
IMPULSES
Curated stories on the topic of slowing down and stressing less, designed to open up new ways of looking at why you should give yourself permission to un-rush.
Deep Listening is Becoming a Lost Skill (Why Smart People Really Listen)
We all need to listen better. That is the mantra. But why do you really need to pay attention to what the other person is saying and trying to convey to you? What’s in it for you?
Your reward for listening is enjoyment, helpful information, or possible solutions.
You might walk away amazed and inspired.
Read my whole article if you like to know what’s in it for you when you make an effort to really listen (4 min. read) here >
Face-to-Face Conversations for Happiness and Health
There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for people being happy and healthy in a place. It depends on your culture and environment. But the basic idea stays the same: human interaction, social connection, friends, and family are huge factors, no matter where, when it comes to how to create a happy and healthy life.
Take Costa Rica. This country is home to one of the five original Blue Zones regions, the regions where a high number of centenarians live in excellent health. Costa Rica is also one of the happiest places in Central America. Studies indicated that they have a high level of life satisfaction and the country has the highest literacy rate in Latin America. How come?
Dan Buettner, founder of Blue Zones, exploring in collaboration with experts the longevity hotspots around the world, explains: “Costa Rica is a place where religion, family, and social interaction are the main values, unlike trying to get ahead, or financial security, or status. Their cities are set up, so they’re bumping into each other all day long. They walk to the markets, where they have conversations with people.”
In Costa Rica, multiple generations either live together in the same house or within proximity and are very much involved in each other’s lives. There’s a village mindset where neighbors are often more like extended family, and people come and go to help each other or just stop in for a visit. All of this contributes to a feeling of life satisfaction and happiness.
Refreshing Your Mind For 10 Minutes A Day
All it takes is 10 mindful minutes a day to refresh your mind and feel better. That’s what mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe promotes, who is an author, speaker, and teacher of meditation and mindfulness. He also co-founded the well-known meditation App Headspace.
When was the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? That’s the hard part, I think. Not thinking. Not doing anything, I get it. But not thinking….?
Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. Listen to his interesting and joyful TED talk (he also juggles during the talk) to learn more about it >
Feeling Constantly Behind And Rushed Has A Name: Hurry Sickness
The term sounds almost crazy, but hurry sickness is actually a thing and no joke.
Hurry sickness can occur when your constant sense of urgency impacts your well-being negatively, causing stress and anxiety.
If you are feeling constantly behind and rushed, racing to accomplish tasks on your to-do list, you experience hurry sickness. While multitasking under time pressure can boost your productivity in the short term, it can damage your long-term health and relationships.
Read more about what causes hurry sickness, how it affects your well-being, and how to manage it >
So true ….
🥰😍