RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If only maintaining and strengthening friendships in real life were as easy as clicking the Facebook “Add friend” button. A study out of the Netherlands found that we lose about half the friends in our social circle within seven years. But that doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to becoming friendless with age; it just points to the importance of cultivating the close friendships you already have while perhaps letting those close acquaintances and one-sided friendships drop off. Another study published in the journal Hormones and Behavior finds that it may be better for your overall well-being to have one or two close friends rather than hordes of friends with whom you have very little connection.

THE DETAILS: In the Hormones and Behavior study, researchers had college students engage in one of two activities: a closeness task, during which a pair of students would answer very personal questions about themselves and their personalities, or a neutral task, during which the students read a botany journal article together and were asked to edit it for mistakes. After each task, researchers measured levels of the hormone progesterone in the students’ saliva, and asked them to rate their response to the statement, “I would risk my life for [my partner in this study],” on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The researchers found that students in the closeness group had much higher levels of progesterone, which lowers stress and enhances feelings of closeness, and were also more likely to rank highly on willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the partner.