Friends are Good for your Brain

​New research highlights the benefits of friendships for brain health

Last month I looked at loneliness and how this can have a negative impact on the brain. This month I will look at some of the recent research that shows just how good friends are for the brain.

Loneliness I showed last month is bad for the brain. But is it the case that absence of loneliness is all we need, or do friends actually give us, and our brains, more? Those affiliative folk amongst you will immediately intuit that friendships do bring something else to us as human beings.

One thing that has become clear is that if something feels good, it is good for you. Sorry, this may sound obvious, but the science has for a long time been trying to disentangle the psychological and biological, or rather find the precise mechanisms by which this happens. Though many of us have always said it is always biological. Last month I reviewed oxytocin and how this has many positive benefits but let’s look at two pieces of research that I have reported on in other areas which show just why friends are important.

Being a good listener (or being listened to)