Getting Real With Shadra Bruce
Not everything you choose do to benefit your health requires you to get sweaty, breathe heavy, or worry about whether or not you are hitting your target heart rate. One of the best things women can do for their health – something that will benefit your physical health as well as your mental and emotional health – is a girls’ night out.
Connecting with other women is important to your health. Girl’s night out isn’t always a late-night bar scene; some of my favorite girl’s night out moments are actually no further away than the back porch of a friend’s house with wine.
Yes, you need to eat right and exercise, but connection and conversation make a huge difference too. Study after study has demonstrated that women who spend time connecting with other women are not only happier but live longer and are more likely to survive stressful periods of their life. Time with our girlfriends offer a healthy dose of self-esteem, because our girlfriends love us no matter who we are.
When you’re busy working, raising a family, and being a good wife, girlfriends sometimes go by the wayside, but that’s when the women in your life actually become even more critical to your health. Whether it’s having someone you can vent to about the stress of being everything to everyone or just need to be with someone who understands that even though you love your life you sometimes wish you were still the free-wheeling 20-something who smoked cigars and drank wine by the bottle, your girlfriends are important.
It’s ok for your husband and your kids to miss you and learn to survive without you. It will teach them to appreciate you and give them time to bond with Dad. If you are a single mom, hire a sitter or reach out to family – but don’t make excuses that keep you from enjoying girls’ night out.
Do something good for your health this weekend: leave your kids with your husband, your mom, or yes, a girlfriend…and get out for girls’ night out.