Friends Can Be Stressful
Friends can be a source of stress, though. In fact, friends can cause more stress than others precisely because we care so much about them.
Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, has found that dealing with people who arouse conflicted feelings in us can raise blood pressure more than dealing with people we don't like.
"My colleagues and I were interested in relationships that contain a mix of positivity and negativity," she says. "For example, you might love your mother very much, but still find her overbearing or critical at times."
By attaching people to portable blood pressure monitors, Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues found that blood pressure was highest when people were interacting with someone they felt ambivalent about.
What she found really surprising was that these interactions caused higher blood pressure than those with people the research subjects felt completely negative about. "We suspect that people we feel positive toward can hurt us that much more when they make a snide comment or don't come through for us because they are important to us. Friends may help us cope with stress, but they also may create stress."
So would we be better off having no friends at all?
Hardly. "One thing research shows is that as one's social network gets smaller, one's risk for mortality increases," Holt-Lunstad says. "And it's a strong correlation—almost as strong as the correlation between smoking and mortality." The imact of being lonely.
Good Friends Are Good for You
By Tom Valeo
