The Healing Power of Friendship
Recently, I spent the weekend away with some of my girlfriends. A “girls’ trip” had been many months in the making and was somewhat challenging to coordinate around the busy schedules and full lives of four professional women.
I confess, I am 55 years old, and this was my first girls’ trip ever. I was excited to get away and knew I needed a break from the busyness of my life, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
We had planned a variety of activities—some time in the city, evenings cooking together, and days spent wandering through the small towns around our destination. But the beauty of the trip wasn’t really found in the activities we had planned. It was found in the connections we created over those days together.
The endless hours of talking, listening, and laughing. The stories we shared. The comfortable silences. The freedom to simply be ourselves.
The days were full and often longer than my typical days. I slept deeply, and yet I never felt tired. I returned home feeling renewed in a way that is difficult to describe.
We’ve all heard of the “fight or flight” response to stress, but research has also explored the idea that women may be more likely to respond to stress through patterns of “tend and befriend”—seeking connection, caring for others, and turning toward social support. This idea was explored in a 2000 paper published in Psychological Review by researchers Shelley Taylor and colleagues.
Social connection can play an important role in how we experience and respond to stress. Research has linked supportive relationships with greater resilience and with physiological processes involved in stress regulation. Oxytocin is one of the hormones involved in social bonding, although the relationship between oxytocin, estrogen, stress, and social connection is more complex than the simple “feel-good hormone” story we sometimes hear.
Still, I don’t think we need a scientific explanation to understand what I experienced that weekend.
There was something deeply restorative about being with women who know me, listening to their stories, sharing my own, laughing until my stomach hurt, and having nowhere else I needed to be.
Perhaps my nervous system really did get a little reset—not because I escaped my life, but because I spent time feeling connected, supported, and fully present.
I am grateful to have found such meaningful friendships at this time in my life. And I’m reminded that connection isn’t a luxury. It is part of what helps us thrive.
If you have a strong network of women in your life, celebrate those relationships. Make time for them. Protect them. And if you don’t, it’s never too late to begin building them.
It might mean stepping outside your comfort zone, meeting new people, joining something that interests you, or simply saying yes when an opportunity to connect presents itself.
Because sometimes what we need most isn’t another thing on our to-do list.
Sometimes we simply need each other.
And I, for one, am already looking forward to our next trip—when I can fill up on laughter, connection, and all the good feelings that come from being with people I love.
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