Many, this writer included, believes that our relationships with friends are the single biggest source of happiness in our lives. The impact of friendships on your happiness and mental health is significant. Stress is reduced, comfort and delight are given, and loneliness and isolation are avoided by having good companions. Having intimate relationships can significantly affect your physical health.
Below we explore how sports is a great way to make new friends and, specifically, how taking tennis lessons is one of the best ways to meet awesome people.
What Are the Benefits of Having Quality Friends in Your Life?
Friendships are beneficial to your health. Friends may encourage you during difficult times and help you celebrate good moments. Friends keep you from feeling alone.
Here are five key ways having friends is good:
- Boost your sense of purpose and belonging
- Increase your joy and decrease your stress
- Boost your sense of value and self-assurance
- Assist you in overcoming traumas like divorce, critical illness, job loss, or the loss of a loved one
- Encourage self-improvement and make good life choices
Your general health is significantly boosted by your friends as well.
Adults who have strong social ties are less likely to experience serious health issues like depression, high blood pressure, and an unhealthy body mass index (BMI).
In fact, research has shown that older persons with strong social ties and relationships are more likely to live longer than their contemporaries who have fewer personal connections.
Why is Playing Sports a Good Method for Making Life-Long Friends?
When you’re a player, you spend many hours on the field, or in our case, the court. Whether it’s for training or in actual games, often the only people you get to talk to about those experiences are your teammates.
You break a sweat together, bicker with each other, compete against one another, and sometimes even share mutual feelings of animosity toward your coach for what he’s had you go through!
The amount of time that we all spend together while traveling to tournaments, waiting on the sidelines between matches, or even just winding down by the hotel pool helps us to recognize similar qualities and interests in each other. This helps us to establish and strengthen those connections.
From the Coach’s Perspective
There are a lot of perks to being a coach. There is no comparable feeling of fulfillment to that which one has when everything works out as planned and all the participants are rewarded for the efforts they have put in.
Even if you don’t receive credit for it, it warms your heart to see a player make a change to their game or to remedy a mistake that you’ve coached them over.
This is also true when witnessing an otherwise shy, introverted person open up, begin to relate with fellow students, and eventually make new friends.
If you stay involved with your young players for a sufficient amount of time, you will be able to witness their transition into young adults. You get to see one of your players go from being someone you’ve guided to becoming someone you count as a friend.
Why is it Harder for Some People to Make Friends & Maintain Those Connections?
It can be challenging for some kids and adults to make new acquaintances or to maintain the friendships they already have.
It’s not uncommon for friendships to take a backseat to other obligations, like a job, taking care of young children, or tending to elderly parents.
It’s possible that you and your pals have drifted apart as a result of changes in your lives or the things that interest you. Or maybe you’ve relocated to a new area for college, work, or a relationship and are looking for ways to make new friends, but you haven’t found anything yet.
Creating and sustaining healthy friendships requires effort on both parts. The satisfaction and solace that may be gained from a good friendship, on the other hand, make the effort worthwhile.
How Many Friends Do You Need to Be Happy?
Like many things in life, when it comes to friendships, the quality of your relationships is more important than the number of people you can call “friend.”
You may feel a greater sense of belonging and well-being if you cultivate close, meaningful relationships that support you through thick and thin.
It can be very beneficial to cultivate a diverse network of friends and acquaintances; you may even feel a greater sense of belonging and well-being if you do so.
6 Ways You Can Be a Better Friend
Here are some useful tips for letting those closest to you know that you care about them and value their friendship.
#1 Be Considerate
The cornerstone of a successful relationship is still this most fundamental aspect. Consider a friendship as a bank account for your emotions. This account is credited with every kind deed and every show of thanks, while negativity and criticism deplete the account.
#2 Take Time to Listen
Inquire about the lifestyles of your pals. Make sure the other person knows you are paying attention by making eye contact, using your body to communicate, and making small remarks like, “That sounds fun.”
Be sympathetic when friends share specifics of painful times or experiences, but try to refrain from offering advice unless your friends specifically request it.
#3 Open Up About Yourself
By disclosing personal information to your closest friends, you can foster the relationship. Sharing intimate details about your life with a friend demonstrates how significant they are to you and can build long-lasting bonds.
#4 Show Your Trustworthiness
Strong friendships need to be honest, faithful, and dependable. Keep your set plans and be where you say you’re going to be on time. Always keep your end of the bargain. And if confidential information is shared, keep it to yourself, unless, of course, the information may cause harm to someone.
#5 Make Yourself Available
A strong friendship requires time spent together. Make an effort to stay in touch with new acquaintances between encounters and to meet up with them frequently.
The first few times you speak on the phone or meet up, you can feel uncomfortable, but this awkwardness will probably disappear as you get more at ease with one another.
#6 Be Mindful
Use mindfulness to control your anxiety. You can find yourself picturing the worst possible social scenarios and be inclined to stay in. Practice mindfulness to restructure your thinking.
Consider how frequently the embarrassing circumstances you fear actually occur each time you picture the worst. You can see that the events you anticipate rarely transpire.
Join Basha Tennis & Start Making New Friends Today!
We here at Basha Tennis, in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, know that it’s not always easy to form or keep friendships, despite the fact that doing so can have a significant positive effect on one’s health and overall well-being.
We recognize the significance of social connections in our lives and familiarizing oneself with the steps needed to be taken to cultivate and maintain long-lasting friendships, which we strive to achieve and instill in our students, coaches, and parents.
Click here to see what Basha Tennis is all about and visit our Adults tennis and Youth tennis lessons pages to get an idea of what our group lessons entail. We can’t wait to see you soon!