Subject: thought you would enjoy this

>>>Forwarded to me, by my boss/friend. Enjoy!!!

Someone had just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The

last lecture was on the mind-body connection--the relationship between

stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford)

said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could

do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one

of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her

relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he

was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems

that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life

experiences. Physically this quality "girlfriend time" helps us to

create more seratonin--a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression

and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings

whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely

sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain

things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports?

Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their

feelings?--rarely. Women do it all of the time. We share from our

souls with our sisters, and evidently that is very good for our

health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important

to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are

doingsomething good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with

friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively

engaged--not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and

maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as

dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang

out to shmooze with a gal pal or sister, just pat yourself on the back

and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health!

We are indeed very very lucky.

Sooooo let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends/sisters.

Evidently it's very good for our health.

Thanks, Girls! >>>