The Health Benefits of Friends in Your Later Years
Why you should take a chance on new friendships
Sometimes I think that making friends is easier in our younger years. When we are in school we have a large pool of people to draw from when it comes to starting new friendships. When we start having a family there are many opportunities to make friends with other parents at our kids’ soccer games or ballet practice. We have interests in common and friendships are easily made.
When we get older, though, staying in touch with some of those old friends becomes more difficult as we move around and our circumstances change. In my own life, a divorce, remarriage and a move to another state have all conspired to leave me feeling destitute of friends.
“Loneliness and social isolation can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is more dangerous to health than obesity.”
When we moved to a new state, we knew no one here. I have made some connections at work, and I am grateful for the contact that I have with some of my coworkers, but there has never been anyone who I felt really close to. Now that I have gone to a two-day work week I am seeing less and less of those people. None of my work…
