The Secret Power of Friendship

I become completely obsessed with the concept of friendship I mean there's an entire industry to help us be better leaders there's an entire industry to help us be better parents uh there's an entire industry to teach us how to eat better how to exercise better and yet there's nothing to help us be better friends and if you think about it all of the challenges that we're facing today mental health challenges Rising rates of depression anxiety in uh inability to cope with stress even the obsession with longevity friendship fixes is all of those things friendship is

the ultimate biohack and if you ask most people are you a good friend most people think they are but you start to peel back the onion just a little bit right would you cancel on a friend for a meeting or would you cancel on a meeting for a friend oh but my friend would understand right or if you look at the best relationships right the best romantic relationships in marriages the the couples that you're like that's the kind of relationship I want if you ask them how do you do it they all say the same

thing which is it's a lot of work and we put the effort in and do the work when was the last time anybody ever said I put the effort and undo the hard work for my friends um and and this is why I've become so obsessed with friendship I don't think we are most of us actually aren't good friends um and I think the reward that we get from working hard to be a good friend is not only good for the person who to with whom we are friends but the intense reward of working hard

for another human being it pays back in dividends of mental health the feeling of um that you're never alone most of our understanding of uh addiction and how addiction Works comes from uh an experiment was done back in the 50s or 60s where they took a rat they put it in a cage and they gave it um plain water and they gave it drug laced water and the the rat drank both liked the drug water became addicted to the drug water and eventually died right um a guy by the name of Bruce Alexander pretty recently

uh said that the experiment was flawed he said because rats like us are social animals and if you put an a Social Animal by itself and make it lonely yeah it's going to get addicted and so he recreated the experiment more true to life he built something called rat Park where he put lots of rats and and mazes and wheels and they were having babies and community and friends and he put two waters a plain one and a drug laac one and they all tried both and they tried enough of the drug drug laac one

to become addicted and yet they can see from the data that the amount of drug lace water that they took went into steady decline and they actually didn't drink it anymore they only drank the plain water which shows evidence that when we have close friendships and when we have relationships it actually reduces um our uh chances of becoming addicted to anything and now we look at social media addiction and yes social media and cell phones or dopamine producing devices they are absolutely dangerous however it gives evidence that if we practice and work on our ability

to become friends that if we teach our children how to be friends taking all of the kids phones away when they come over for play dates that the chances that they will become addicted to any including social media will actually go down