What’s better than leaving the guys behind, getting your girlfriends together, and going on a vacation? Whether you go somewhere that’s a plane ride away or just 30 minutes away from your house, nothing beats a girls’ trip. They’re great fun, relaxing as hell, and as it turns out, they’re good for your health too. What more could you possibly ask for?
Now might be the perfect time for you to get your best friends together and plan a vacation. Several studies have researched just how important it is to spend time with friends. From them, we can see that taking a girls’ trip will improve your health, according to science.
Your Friends Are Your Medicine
Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah recently conducted a study which looked at the lives of 308,000 people. What they found was that people who didn’t have close friends were at risk for premature death. So, you’re really not being overdramatic when you say that you’d die without your best friend. The researchers behind this study said that not having strong social connections had the same effect as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
These same researchers then went on to explain why friendship has such an important role in our wellbeing. According to them, it’s because being with friends and people that you love relieves stress. As we already know, stress can cause some serious damage to both your mental and physical health.
“As we encounter potentially stressful events in our lives, if we know that we’ve got people we can count on or that we can turn to, we may be less likely to even perceive it as stressful, because we know we can handle it,” says researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad. “But also, let’s say we’re already in the throes of some kind of stressful event, our relationships can also help us cope with it and buffer that reaction to the stress.”
It’s Good For Your Mental Health Too
It’s not just your physical health that’s influenced by how often you get to hang out with your friends. Unsurprisingly, they’re also vital for your mental health too. To prove this, another study was done on the importance of social connections, which was later published in Brill.
In this study, researchers found that being with friends increased the production of oxycontin, also known as the “happy hormone.” This chemical, which is also released when we cuddle up with someone, makes people more trusting, empathetic, and friendly. Along with that, it can also help to alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety.
It turns out that girls’ trips are more than just fun, they’re good for your health too. There’s never been a better time to plan a vacation away with your best friends. So, call them up and go have the best time of your life. To make it even better, your mental and physical health will even improve because of it.
Share this article with your friends so that you can start planning a girls’ trip together.
