Why researchers say close friendships are key to good health
CBC
Reaching out to a friend you haven't seen that much over the past three years may actually be beneficial to your health, according to Canadian researchers.
But it's something that could take extra effort after everything we've been through during the pandemic. Many people went through major upheavals in their lives while having to isolate themselves at home, cut off from friends and family when they needed them most.
That was the case for Kathryn Boyd. She broke up with her partner and moved to a different Toronto neighbourhood, and as a single mom to a teenage boy, her time was limited.
Although she still had friends she could call, she got out of the habit of regularly seeing people, and that put a strain on her mental health.
"COVID didn't help. I found I was getting into this hermit kind of lifestyle," said Boyd.
"I didn't have that sounding board and I often felt like, 'Oh, maybe I just need to find a therapist,' but it's not the same. When you speak to a therapist you don't have the mutual interest in each other."
As pandemic restrictions lifted and people started socializing more, Boyd decided it was time to get out of her friendship slump. She met Claire Hepburn, a lawyer who lives in Toronto and who also had just gone through a break-up.
"I think when you have a long-term relationship that ends and you put a lot of your social capital into that, you kind of have to reinvent yourself a little bit," said Hepburn.
So with each other, the two women are learning the skill of making new friends as adults.
The pandemic put our close personal connections to the test, says Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto.
"I think it drove home to a lot of people that maybe outside of their work environment, they may not have as extensive social connections and community as would be beneficial."
In her research, Fuller-Thomson looks at the factors that determine how well someone recovers from an adverse event — whether that's depression, a stroke, or in one recent study, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
She and her colleagues found that Canadians 50 and over with COPD who had a close confidante were seven times more likely to be free of mental illness than those who didn't.
Although it wasn't the only determining factor, she called having a close friend the "secret sauce" to thriving.
