Why Friendship in Midlife Is Everything (and I mean everything)

There comes a point in a woman’s life where you realise that friendship isn’t a luxury. It’s not a “nice to have.”It is medicine.

At the sumit of Pen-Y-Ghent

By the time you reach your forties, fifties and beyond, the friendships you still carry are no longer accidental. They are forged. Tempered. Battered by grief, babies, break-ups, menopause, addiction, cancer, divorce, joy, success, funerals and wild laughter at 2am when you should really know better.

Some of the people in these photos? I’ve known for nearly 30 years.

We’ve done life together.The highest highs. The lowest lows.The “I don’t know if I can survive this” moments. And the “how the hell did we get here?” belly-laughing ones.

And now, here we are, climbing snow-dusted mountains together instead of dancing all night on muddy fields at illegal raves. Still moving. Still expressing. Still finding freedom in our bodies. Just with better waterproofs and more snacks!

Friendship is literal hormone therapy

This isn’t just poetic. It’s biological.

When we hug, laugh, cry, walk side-by-side or sit knee-to-knee telling the truth, our bodies release oxytocin — the bonding hormone.

Oxytocin:

• Lowers cortisol (your stress hormone)

• Regulates blood pressure

• Calms the nervous system

• Supports immune function

• Improves sleep

• Helps balance oestrogen and progesterone through stress reduction

• Makes you feel safe in your body again.

  
  

In midlife — when hormones are wobbling, sleep is fragile and the nervous system is often fried — this matters more than ever.

Friendship is not just emotional support. It is endocrine support.

A long hug can do what no supplement can.

Laughter is immune medicine

When we laugh — real, ugly, snorting, can’t-catch-your-breath laughter — we increase:

• Natural killer cells

• T-cells

• Antibody production

• Endorphins (pain-relieving, mood-lifting neurotransmitters

• PREVENT DISEASE ( yes i said prevent disease).

  
  

Which means your immune system literally wakes up when you’re laughing with people who know you.

Not your polished self. Your real one.The messy, menopausal, grieving, wildly alive one.

There is something deeply regulating about being seen by women who remember who you were before you forgot or became invisible.

We didn’t meet in yoga studios

We met on dancefloors.

In fields. In warehouses. In places where the bass was louder than our fear and the music cracked us open.

We danced until we dissolved.

Now we walk mountains. (with por gorgous children ). We swim in cold lakes. We sit around fires and talk about hormones, heartbreak and how bloody brave we’ve had to become.

Same women. Different medicine.

Movement is still our language.Nature is now our cathedral.

Long friendships rewire the nervous system

When you have known someone for decades, your nervous system trusts them.

They’ve seen you:

• Before the cancer

• Before the divorce

• Before the drinking stopped

• Before the business was born

• Before the grief split you open

And they stayed.

That consistency tells your vagus nerve:You are safe.

And safety is the foundation of healing.

No gut heals. No hormones stabilise. No immune system repairs itself when the body thinks it is alone.

This is what midlife magic really looks like

Not perfect skin. Not a flat stomach. Not “having it all together.”

It looks like standing on a frozen mountain with women who know your entire story and love you anyway.

It looks like holding hands at the summit and crying because you made it through things you never thought you would.

It looks like deep, cellular exhale.

If you are lonely in midlife…

Please hear this:

You are not broken. You are wired for connection.

And it is never too late to find your people — the ones who laugh with you, walk with you, sit beside you when it’s unbearable and cheer when you rise again.

Friendship is not soft. It is ferocious medicine.