Make More Friends for a Happy Life

Friends help us on life’s journey. They share our joy and laugh with us. Friends can be confided in with our secret dreams and they will help us to make them a reality. Having good friends will help us when obstacles arise or we lose our motivation. Whether we are eight or eighty, friends are always going to be important to us. They help shape our personality and define our values. Psychologists and physicians have come to the conclusion that strong relationships have a positive impact on our mental and physical health, and also our happiness! During the course of our life, the ways in which we maintain friendly relationships and how we search for new friends changes. Learn why it's important to have a lot of friends and how to look for new friends, even if it's much harder in adulthood.

Surprising reasons why we need friends

We have looked into what professional studies say about friendship and its influence on our lives. Below are some surprising reasons why it is important to build quality relationships and spend time in the company of others. You will find that the meaning of friendship is much deeper than you might have thought.

People are naturally social creatures, they seek out interpersonal relationships. According to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, the sense of belonging is one of the most basic human needs. In his pyramid of need, the needs to be loved comes in third place, after basic physiological needs and security. According to the portal simplepsychology.org, Maslow's need for love and belonging is associated with friendships, intimacy, trust, acceptance, giving and receiving attention and love, as well as the ability to be part of a group like family, friends, or work teams. Psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary even claim that belonging is a basic human motivation. According to these authors, the need to feel closely associated with others is one of the primary motivating factors in terms of human behaviour.

We feel happier

Ed Diener and Mark Seligman are psychologists, who are engaged in research into human happiness and the feeling of personal well-being. They have come to the conclusion that happy people are more sociable and have stronger friendships than less happy people. Good relationships with people are essential to make people feel happy in life. A study by the Harvard Medical School, which examined 5,000 people over the age of 20, has found that having a cheerful friend can increase by 15% the likelihood that we will be happy too! On the other hand, she proved that an unhappy friend reduces this probability to just 7%. According to the University of Warwick study from 2015, our friends can protect us from depression and can also help with the treatment of this condition.

We are physically healthier

Several independent studies have shown that having a number of strong friendships helps to maintain health. Scientists have discovered many health benefits of friendship. One of the experts dealing with the influence of social ties on physiological functions is sociologist Yang Claire Yang at the University of North Carolina. Yang and his colleagues studied these health effects by comparing health indicators (such as blood pressure, body mass index, inflammation markers, etc.) of people living in isolation with people who have many friends. This research was supported by four large-scale studies involving thousands of people aged between 12 and 91 years. They found that people with weaker social relationships had poorer results of measured health indicators. Their findings were presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in January 2015.

Stress-busting Buddies!

The above-mentioned Professor Yang and his colleagues believe that friendship and health are linked through physical stress processing. In the short term, stress is beneficial. Chronic stress, on the other hand, has destructive effects on our body and health. Strong friendly relationships generally help us to fight the negative effects of stress on our body.

We live longer

People with strong social ties are at a lower risk of premature death than people living in isolation. Such affirmation is also confirmed by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist and researcher at Brigham Young University in Utah. Her research included 148 studies dealing with the relationship between social relationships and mortality. The study included more than 308,000 participants, and the research was averaged over 7.5 years. Research shows that strong interpersonal relationships increase the chances of living longer, healthier lives. Another study that confirms that having good friends prolongs life (even more than family relationships). This was the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging, which surveyed nearly 1,500 seniors over a ten-year period.

We can look forward to better mental health

Swedish research, which examined people over the age of 75, has shown that women and men who maintain relationships with friends and family members are less likely to develop dementia. Researchers said that maintaining a number of relationships could have an impact on the mental exercise that helps the brain to ‘keep fit’. The same was confirmed by a 2012 Dutch study, which tracked 2,000 people around the age of 65 for more than 3 years. At the beginning of the research, none of them suffered dementia. By the end of the survey, 13.4% of those who said they felt alone had dementia. Among those who did not feel alone, 5.6% of people had this disease.

Why is making friends more difficult in adulthood

According to William Rawlins, Professor of Intercultural Communication at Ohio University, the most favourable period for creating friendships is in early adulthood. In childhood, our friends are children with whom we can play, whereas in early adulthood, friendships are more complex and become more meaningful. Young people still do not have too many commitments like marriage or child-rearing, so they have enough free time to hang out with friends. According to the Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, young people usually spend 10 to 25 hours a week with their friends. According to American Time Use Survey, people between 20 and 24 years of age spend more time in the company of others that at any other age. In this period, people also have the most friends because they make friends with classmates or people living in the same city.

Adulthood brings marriage, children, careers, and as a result our leisure time is significantly reduced. People are flooded with a lot of responsibilities, and there is less time for friends. A frequent case is also moving to work in another city or even a new country and lose contact with friends. In a new city, you can find yourself without any friends and not know how or where to look for them. As we get older, spontaneity also decreases and people become more reserved. Making new friends gets harder. Take a look at our 6 tips on how to make new friends more easily, regardless of age!

6 ways to make new friends

Making new friends and acquaintances is can be tricky. It depends on many factors: personality type, current life situation, age and sex, to name a few. Extroverts, for example, usually have numerous acquaintances of a rather superficial nature, while introverts will have less, but often these are deeper friendships. Expectations from friendships vary. Establishing and maintaining a friendship is an individual thing. Still, we'll try to give you a few general tips that are based on the recommendations of professionals and researchers in the field. We believe you can find inspiration and that these tips will help you to build or deepen positive relationships. Do not forget that without friends we can’t be fully happy.

1. Smile and maintain eye contact

It has been proven that smiling people are more sympathetic. Smiles and laughter help to establish new relationships and generally improve social ties. Smiling always improves people’s perception of you and building friendships is no exception. Dale Carnegie also talks about the importance of smiles in acquiring new friends in his book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People’. He says that smile is a key sign of friendship. Several scientific studies have shown that smiling is also contagious. If you smile honestly at someone, chances are that they will smile back at you as well. Smiling is also a kind of communication that can be understood by everybody on earth, no matter what language they speak. Dr. Pradeep Thapar, a psychiatrist from Advocate Christ Medical, recommends that in a situation where you are meeting someone new you should smile and maintain eye contact. A friendly smiling person can expect a positive response. At the same time, he recommends not to look away or to get distracted by your smartphone!

2. Build social networks offline

Building friendship requires time and effort. A true conversation with a friend, including eye contact and positive body language, is far more beneficial than communicating with a virtual network of friends. According to psychologytoday.com, every American spends on average 37 minutes a day on Facebook. This is one full day each month dedicated to virtual friends. How much time do you spend on social networks? Would not it make more sense to invest this time in building friendships in the real world? In addition, too much social networking can increase the levels of stress people experience. This is what Bean Marder of the University of Edinburgh Business School says. Stress occurs when people try to present a version of themselves that will be accepted by all their friends on the virtual network, and this can lead to anxiety.

3. Be positive and entertaining

It has been proven that people feel better in the company of positive people. Humour lightens every conversation, and optimists are more likely to establish new contacts. The results of Belinda Campos, a psychologist at the University of California-Irvine, confirms that positive emotions are of great importance in gaining new social contacts. People are more comfortable in the company of positive people! Angry faces and constantly complaining people simply don’t attract anyone. If someone feels good in your company, they are more likely to want to meet you again! Be positive and people will respond well to you.

4. Listen and be entertained

Many people fall into the bad habit of constantly talking about themselves, their lives, and their problems. It is often the case that one person won’t even let the other get a word I edge-ways, and is too fond of sentences beginning with the personal pronoun. The other party will usually lose interest in telling you anything about themselves in return. Be different and listen actively. Ask about what you are interested in, don’t try to fake it. Do not try to judge or to interrupt to give advice. By actively listening, you have a great chance to enrich your life with new information and probably also make a new friend. According to psychologist Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D. (Psychologytoday.com) people who can’t listen well demonstrate a lack of social skills and empathy, without which friendships and other interpersonal relationships, are hard to build.

5. Don’t be afraid to take the first step

Adults, unfortunately, do not engage in friendship as easily as children can. They have barriers and are afraid they will be rejected. We assume that everybody already has their own group of friends ... but the real situation may be different. What if the other person has exactly the same concerns? You won’t find out until you ask! The first step towards creating a new potential friendship is conversation. If you are shy, psychologist Suzanne Degges-White Ph.D. (Psychologytoday.com) advises you to start a conversation with someone who appears to be on the periphery of the group. A person like that may be shy themselves, and be thrilled with the interaction. Start a conversation based on a lightweight common theme. A second topic may be to ask about hobbies and interests. If a conversation naturally evolves and is pleasant for both sides, it is a good basis for the next time you speak. In short, look for opportunities to invite people into your life.

6. Be as you would like your close friend to be

We've determined what features people expect from close friends. In his book ‘What is a Good Friend’, Christopher P. Roberts-Griffin states that people expect their friends to show characteristics like credibility, honesty and the ability to support, both morally and emotionally. While there are differences in the expected qualities between men and women, between age groups, and between people born outside of the US, these characteristics tend to recur as favourites. The previously mentioned Suzanne Degges-White states that amongst the basic qualities of friendship are credibility, honesty, reliability, loyalty, trustworthiness, empathy, the ability not to judge, the ability to listen, the supportiveness, self-confidence, humour and a sense of fun. Whatever you expect from a friend, behave according to these expectations yourself. You will attract people with the same values.

Sources:
psychologytoday.com
everydayhealth.com
theatlantic.com
scienceofrelationships.com
psychcentral.com
forbes.com
health.harvard.edu
livescience.com
health.harvard.edu
simplypsychology.org
quora.com