Friends make our lives better. They encourage us when we’re feeling down and make us laugh. Friends make us feel good, almost anyone would agree. But the article by Tara Parker-Pope, “What Are Friends For? ” goes beyond this simple point. The article presents ample evidence that having friends not only makes us happier, it also makes us healthier, both mentally and physically. According to Parker-Pope, our friendships can affect our weight, stress levels, and even our lifespan.
One significant ideas presented in this article is that having is that having friends can give us the mental strength to overcome the obstacles we face. This significant idea is important because people with illness tend to recover easier with friends around, also Friendship have more outlooks for challenges than those people who have fewer friends. Of course, facing a difficult challenge with friends is easier than facing it alone. Friends can help us by giving advice and support. But it’s not only that. Having friends can also make us believe we are capable of succeeding.
Proving this point, Parker-Pope discusses an Australian study in which students had to climb a steep hill. Before they began, the students were asked to guess how steep the hill was. According to the article, “the students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill” compared to those who stood alone. That is to say, those who had the support of their friends felt more capable of succeeding. I can certainly identify with the students in the study. I’m currently facing the challenge of going to college. Before I came to the CUNY Start program, I felt isolated and worried.
I used to lie awake at night wondering how I would ever manage to read thick textbooks and write research papers, on top of working. In this program I’ve made friends who are also planning to go to college, and we’re facing this challenge together. This means we can share information, study together, and give each other emotional support. The tasks seem much more manageable now. In other words, the backpack is still heavy, but the hill doesn’t seem as steep Furthermore, having friends to support us is helpful, but having old friends, those who have known us since childhood, can be even more powerful.
As the Australian study suggests, “the longer friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared. ” In other words, having old friends can give us an even bigger boost when it comes to facing life’s most difficult challenges. In my own experience one day l was in the hospital sick for an illness that make me unhappy and don’t want to eat any food but my friend came in the hospital and make some jokes and make me laugh a lot, and make me feel not alone and it help me get true all my problems.
In conclusion, the article by Parker-Pope points out that friends are an important factor in our mental and physical health. It is both an obvious point and one that deserves more attention. We tend to treat illness and depression with medicine, when in some cases, emotional isolation may be the root cause. Of course, medical treatments are sometimes necessary, but we should remember that our friends are our lifeline in many ways.
