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Health & Fitness

Women, A Toast to You

One of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a good / faithful woman. For girls, it's better to be with the gals!! True or False?

Beauty in relationships sometimes jump out at you, but far more often it waits for you to discover it. With time, trust, laughter, sadness, experiences, mistakes, forgiveness, it can be found in the simple, the familiar, even in the mundane. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not”. 

The secret life of beauty for me is the time I spend with people that I adore. And, I hold my girlfriends in high esteem (I adore some of my guy friends as well). We know who we are at this age. When we are young, we are tentative about many things. But now we know our own voices, and most important, have the confidence to use them. I love spending time with my gal-friends and those relationships hold more meaning when you leave or have to move away.

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I've read some chatter about husbands getting envious when the girlfriends meet, as they think their ladies give more forethought to what they wear when they visit one another than for him. 

The following passage was sent to me couple of years ago. Here is part of it. It was a lecture on the mind-body connection — the relationship between stress and disease. 

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The lecturer began by saying that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a good 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 at the idea, but the speaker was serious.

According to the lecture, women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experience. Would you agree?

There has been much written about the evolutionary ties to all of this. But it makes sense that women would have more emphasis on intuitive concepts of safety / nurturing regarding family / community whereas males put an emphasis on hunting / protection.

One book reckoned that from millions of years of evolution; males became less apt to recall small details (as it was best to forget some of the unsavory items involved with warfare / protection) whereas it was vital for women to recall subtleties that would help ensure a better environment to raise young etc... 

This also helps to understand why, sometimes, men and women have problem resolution disconnect. Big picture vs. details?  Black / white “kill or be killed” vs. implied / nuances of social maneuvering? Oh who knows; but whom would you trust to remember subtle details like names at a party or birthdates?

And so, each of the sexes needs time with their own. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin — a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being.  Woman 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 / Finances?  Yes.  Sports / Politics?  Yes.  Fishing, hunting, handguns?  Yes.  But their feelings?

My husband reckons that would be THE easiest way to become ostracized in the Army -- “Hello men, I’m your new Platoon Sergeant, but before we get started, I’m feeling a little insecure at the moment since I put on a few pounds over the winter and these ACUs (Army Combat Uniform) seem to make it look more like 20 lbs!”  

Women would offer comfort perhaps. Men, being pragmatic, would more likely reply, “yeah, you’re fat; now quitcher winin’ and go get in shape or have a beer and get over it!” Problem solved, next battle.

Woman share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. Spending time with a friend is just as important to your general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There’s a tendency, for some, to think that when we are “exercising”, we are doing something 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, failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical healthy as smoking!! So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! 

We are indeed very, very lucky.  Soooooo let’s toast to our friendships with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health. And men, go find a good partner, as that is good for your health. In the end, as most men would acquiesce; women have, once again, made it all about us -- and according to data… that‘s a good thing.

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