Friendships, enrich your life and improve your health.
Good friends relieve stress, provide comfort and joy, prevent loneliness and even strengthen your physical health.
Joining a leisure centre/gym is a great thing to do to help improve your health by doing regular exercise. Whether it’s a good old fashioned workout in the gym, running/walking on the treadmill, lifting weights or a more sedate yoga class, there is no doubt about it, these kinds of activities are good for your general health.
But there is more to life than just exercise right? In joining a gym or a leisure centre, you should find that you can achieve much more for your general wellbeing than just by stretching those muscles and tightening that tum. Making friends and enjoying each other’s company is equally important to your overall health and wellbeing both mentally and physically.
Good friends are good for your health. Friends can help you celebrate good times and provide support during bad times. Friends prevent loneliness and give you a chance to offer needed companionship, too. Friends can also increase your sense of belonging and purpose, boost your happiness and reduce your stress. Friends can improve your self-confidence and self-worth, help you cope with traumas in your life.
Friends also play a significant role in promoting your overall health. Adults with strong social support have a reduced risk of many significant health problems, including depression, high blood pressure and an unhealthy body mass index (BMI). Studies have even found that older adults with a rich social life are likely to live longer than their peers with fewer connections.
Many adults find it hard to develop new friendships or keep up existing friendships. Friendships may take a back seat to other priorities, such as work or caring for children or aging parents. You and your friends may have grown apart due to changes in your lives or interests. Or maybe you’ve moved to a new community and haven’t yet found a way to meet people.
Developing and maintaining good friendships takes effort. The enjoyment and comfort friendship can provide, however, makes the investment worthwhile.
Whatever your age or circumstances, though, it’s never too late to make new friends, reconnect with old ones, and greatly improve your social life, emotional health, and overall well-being.
Your local friendly leisure centre is a great place to start, and if you want to do a little exercise while you are about it, well, it can’t hurt can it!
