Like a romantic relationship, friendship can be a double-edged sword – it breaks you or makes you, and it can simultaneously bring love and pain.
With everything we are going through, with all the pandemic and adjustments we are making as we go through life’s everyday challenges, having friends is like a vitamin to us. Having a healthy set of friends with us during all the phases of life to be at our side is a blessing. As we all know, having a good time, sharing your experience and thoughts, and a time of laughing together is therapeutic for everyone.
As much as we want to maintain all our friends, it does not work that way. It takes two to maintain a good and healthy connection with your friends. And sometimes, friendships grow apart, it is not okay, but we need to accept that.
As we all benefit from having friends, it is not surprising that we gain many benefits, especially for our mental health.
Beneficial to physical health
Believe it or not, having a good circle of friends is good for our health for it decreases health problems like diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.
Confidence booster
Sometimes, there are days that all our insecurities could pile up and eat us alive. Still, friends are there to help us gain confidence by continuously supporting, appreciating, and helping us love ourselves.
Encourager to be better
Developing our behaviour and well-being is one of the best benefits of having friends. They can help us on setting and maintaining to achieve our goals. They also warn us about our misbehaviour. Friends help us to push to become our best version.
Stress beater
Having time to hang out with friends is a free stress reliever for all of us. Having someone to listen to our rants is therapeutic for everyone. Friends help us to cope with stressful situations. Our social connections help us to relieve stress.
Support system
Having friends to be a shoulder to cry on is a gift. If you know that there are people to support you all the time, you gain the absolute value of having great friends that whatever you are going through may help the transition easier.
Maintaining a healthy and positive friendship is a good investment in our health. Spending with people who value us the way we value them has enormous health benefits.
For the abovementioned benefits of having friends, choosing whom we consider and letting us be friends is crucial. Not everyone who is close to us is being real to us. It is also a reminder that it is healthy to have friends, but it is also wrecking to know when we consider people to be our friends, but they are not.
Friends can be healthy and unhealthy at the same time if we do not choose carefully who brings positivity into our lives.
Dina Relojo is the social media manager of Psychreg. She is a high school teacher from the Philippines.
