'How we spend our days is how we spend our lives' - psychotherapist reveals 4 easy tips for keeping in touch with friends

Eat healthily, exercise, have a skincare routine, look after loved ones, earn money and get eight hours of sleep per night. We’ve all seen the memes that talk about the expectations on us as women to keep on top of life and its demands. Stretching ourselves so thin means that maintaining our friendships can often fall to the bottom of the priority list.

But research shows the power of female friendship, as maintaining these important relationships and being sociable can have a hugely positive impact on our physical and mental health. Psychotherapist Julia Samuel MBE says, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and all the research in every domain shows that we fare better when we have close, connected friendships.”

A recent study by psychologists from Cornell University found that strong friendships may slow down our biological ageing. The experts found that people with long-standing friendships showed younger biological profiles and lower levels of chronic inflammation. They observed that out of the 2,100 people involved in the long-running study, published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity, those with deeper connections had lower levels of interleukin-6, a molecule implicated in heart disease, diabetes and neurodegeneration.

"Think of social connections like a retirement account," says Anthony Ong, psychology professor at Cornell University. "The earlier you start investing and the more consistently you contribute, the greater your returns. Our study shows those returns aren't just emotional; they're biological. People with richer, more sustained social connections literally age more slowly at the cellular level. Ageing well means both staying healthy and staying connected - they're inseparable."

This is why Julia, speaking on the BBC’s new radio series The Woman’s Hour Guide to Life, is encouraging us to maintain our friendships, even when it feels like life is pulling us in lots of different directions. “Life is really busy, and we crave friendships, but we keep telling ourselves that we’re too busy and we don’t have time.”

The value of a close, long-standing friendship is the basis of a new ITV heist drama starring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker called Frauds. The actors play two women who have been friends for decades, but now have a toxic friendship that's become dangerous. The six-part series follows them as they embark on one last job.

While Julia isn’t suggesting we embark on a crime spree with our best mate, she does have some tips on how to spend more quality time with those closest to us.

1. Make seeing your friends a priority

Julia says the “quality of our lives is measured by the quality of our relationships”, even if these friendships change over time. She believes our “capacity to have broad friendships is infinite but that our time is finite”, so if we care about our relationships, we have to prioritise them consciously.

She says we never regret meeting up with a friend. “You may be angry with them if you have a fight, but you feel more stimulated, you feel more alive,” she says.

Julia explains that friendships are important because they help us understand more about ourselves, too. “We get our negative stories out of our minds when we connect”, because friends can reassure us that we’re doing our best at whatever we might be finding stressful at that time.

Even finding one day a year to catch up with a friend can be rewarding. If you know that “four of you are going to meet on a particular day in January, then that’s a really nice thing to look forward to” and it “keeps the friendship kindled”, explains Julia. She says you can then keep up with voicenotes and messages in between, if that works.

2. Be kind to yourself

Many people might feel uncomfortable initiating something with a friend, which is why Julia believes it’s important to try to “be kind to yourself and change the story you tell yourself about yourself in friendship”.

By this, Julia means “trust that people are going to want to see you and then have the courage to reach out, to connect to people that you haven’t for a long time and know that you’re very likely to have moments of real laughter and feel better about yourself when you’ve had social connection than if you believe that kind of negative voice that you have in your head”.

3. Add friends into your daily life

Julia calls this tip a friendship hack. It’s not difficult to do, but it will make life more fulfilling and fun. She suggests inviting a friend to do your daily tasks with you, such as “going for a run or going to the gym or shopping”.

It gives you company and someone to talk to on a regular basis, without having to send “50 texts” to organise something more formal, such as a lunch or theatre trip. Even something as mundane as a friend coming for a cup of tea while you cook or tidy your kitchen can be a rewarding connection.

4. Put plans in your diary

Having things booked into your diary ahead of time is a great way of making sure you see friends and don’t go too long between catch-ups.

Julia says: “Know that you speak to a particular person one day a month or that you have a book club or a choir that you join and then you’ll have a connection that’s already in the diary.”

This means that when other parts of life get in the way, you don’t need to worry about adding seeing friends to your to-do list.