UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN  By Gale Berkowitz

 A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special.
 They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our
 tumultuous  inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and
 help us remember who we really are.  By the way, they may do even more.

 Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually
 counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience
 on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to
 stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and
 maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has
 turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside
down.

 Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when
 people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs
 the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains
Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of  Biobehavioral
 Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an
ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the
 planet by saber-toothed tigers.

 Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral
 repertoire than just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems
 that when the hormone oxytocin is release as part of the stress
 responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to
 tend children and gather with other women instead.  When she actually
 engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more
 oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a
 calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says
 Dr. Klein,  because testosterone---which men produce in high levels
 when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin.
 Estrogen; she adds, seems to enhance it.

 The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was
 made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were
 talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the
 women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the
lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they
 holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow
researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males.
 I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly
 that we were onto something.

 The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one
 scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly,
Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress
 research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women
respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.

 It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that
 oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other
 women, but the tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and
Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has
 found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood
pressure,
 heart rate, and cholesterol. There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that
friends are helping us live longer.

 In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no
 friends  increased their risk of death over a 6-month period.
 In another study, those  who had the most friends over a 9-year period
 cut their risk of death by more than 60%.

 Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study
 from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had,
 the less  likely they were to develop physical impairments as they
 aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In
fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having
 close friends or confidants was as detrimental to your health as
 smoking or carrying extra weight!

 And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women
 functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the
 face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close
 friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without
 any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those
 without friends were not always so fortunate. Yet if friends counter
 the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if
 they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard
to find  time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher
Ruthellen  Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils
 of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998).

 Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we
 do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson.
 We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because
 women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one
another.
 And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the
 special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women.

 It's a very healing experience.