friendship

i read another great article in the ny times today. it's all about the value of friend. i loved it! i had to share it!

i thought about sending this to the wwww friends, but then i realized i have so many more i couldn't limit it to them. and although blog world isn't the most personal place to express appreciation for friends, i'm going to do it anyway. i am grateful for the best people a woman could ever ask for. i am awash in the goodness of quality people i feel i can call friend.

what follows is the very last portion of the articel - i tell you, science is amazing!

Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.
The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.
“People with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to,” said Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech. “Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.”