My Mom shared this link with me (she is more than my Mom she is also my girlfriend) and it rung so true to me I needed to share it with you. Thanks Mom I love you!  xo

“In an evening class at Stanford the last lecture was on the mind-body connection – the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other thing, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a 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, but he was serious. Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physcially this quality ‘girlfriend time’ helps to create more serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very GOOD for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym. (Hallelujah to that!) There’s a tendency 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! (I know not ONE of my girlfriends agrees with that statement!) In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!”