The therapeutic power of friendship

Vision of pleasure

Psychologist, Robert Ornstein, and Dr. David Sobel authored the book Healthy Pleasures where they detail their own vision of pleasure. The human brain has many ways to transmit the signal of pleasure from one nerve cell to the other. What is interesting, is the evolution of our human ability to experience pleasure. Throughout the evolution process, all life has been given pleasures like eating or physical contact. Behaviours that lead to pleasure or success are self-reinforcing being more and more enjoyable.

Path to happiness

Being rich, following a healthy diet and playing sports is not in and of itself enough to stay or become healthy and happy. The simplest and most direct path to happiness is giving and caring about others. Nowadays, there are so many support and self-help groups, that everybody can participate in one. These groups supported by their own members help each other. Participation in these kind of meetings helps to fight the feeling of social isolation and loneliness, we all develop at some stage of life.

The emotional assistance

Teresa Seeman from the University of Southern California has described the societal ties of senior citizens. She interviewed almost 3 thousand people aged 65+, none of whom was living in a retirement or residential or nursing home. She came to the conclusion that for these people, it is important not only to have somebody close but also to have the ability to share with others important devlopments in their lives, and to share their emotions with friends or family. Having a wife or a husband doesn’t always add up to the best emotional support. Children while a blessing, at some point can bring only material support, unfortunately not always the emotional assistance we need. When this happens, we may turn to our friends, colleaues, though it could be anyone who is truly able to listen empathize, support and understand. It doesn’t even seem to matter if these people are physically close. What really matters is the will to help and being available when needed.

Support is more than just a physical presence.

Love and affection can be the deciding factor when it comes to crossing the thin line between health and sickness. All in all, this is exactly what decides when we’re happy and empowered, or demotivated and sad.

Dr. Dean Ornish in his book Love and survival points out that the feeling of being supported and united with people surrounding you, has a crucial impact for your health. When you feel loved and surrounded by people who really care about you, you are happier and that equates to being simply healthier. The risk of becoming seriously ill at that point recedes, and even if illness happens, you have a much better chance for a quick recovery. Love and loving relationships act like am emotional and physical shield. They profoundly influence the immune system and makes the body and mind more resistant. Dr. Pasteur once used a good metaphor to describe this situation. He said, that isolation and loneliness is a great environment for microbes and pathogens to grow. Pathogens both physical and mental. This is why all over the world, all successful cultures and nations cultivate unity and affection as a part of the tradition and spiritual life of their society.

Internal spiritual and emotional peace

Love is a phenomenon that is difficult to describe in words. Like a beautiful sunrise or sundet, we can all feel it, but sometimes struggle to fully describe it be it in words, music, or art. Everybody wants to experience it, which is why for ages, people have searched for some universal technique to find true love. It’s important to say here, that intimacy shouldn’t be only about love. It should be also about peace. Internal spiritual and emotional peace. Do you ever wonder what that is? It could be a feeling of full open-mindedness for everything that may or may not happen. It may also mean trust in the power of recovery. Or a complete readiness to live in harmony with everything happening in your life at this moment.

For me personally, this equates to an existence filled with love, affection, intimacy, true wisdom and spiritual bravery.

Excerpt from the book – “Your path to happiness –  Health with absolutely no age limits”