Friendships can bring some surprising benefits to our health. Here's how you can make new friends and strengthen the ones you've got already.

Health, exercise and diet reliably sit at the top of most people's New Year's resolutions – but for 2025, some may consider prioritising another goal: better relations with other people.

Boosting the strength and quality of our social ties can have a huge impact on our emotional and mental health. As one of our writers, David Robson, notes, our friendships can "influence everything from our immune system's strength to our chances of dying from heart disease", and can even help us lead a longer life. Close bonds with spouses and dear friends, but also friendly relations with acquaintances, colleagues and neighbours are all beneficial, suggesting it's worth trying to find common ground even in these polarised times. And in the midst of an apparent loneliness epidemic, it could be the medicine we all need.

Here is our four-day guide to help you jump-start your social life in 2025 – or to simply feel more connected with the world. After all, many types of relationships can bring us joy, opening us up to the world around us by connecting with nature, connecting with animals, and importantly, connecting with ourselves.

When our writer Molly Gorman interviewed friendship researcher Grace Vieth about break-ups between friends, she learned that there's one thing many of us could do to improve our networks: get better at dealing with conflict. As Vieth says: "I think that a lot of people have a mindset that they're willing to work through conflict in romantic relationships". But when it comes to friendship, we may just expect things to "be easy and bring a lot of joy, fun and laughter", Vieth explains – leading us to mistakenly think that if there's conflict, the friendship itself is flawed.

It could be a good idea to take some time to think about what friendship means to you – and what you expect from yourself and others in a friendship. Molly's piece has lots of research-backed information on handling the ups and downs of being friends – and, should it come to it, dealing with and learning from the end of a friendship and its aftermath. (Read her full article here.)

Encouragingly, making friends is in fact something that can be learned and mastered over time – in fact, later life can be a golden age for friendship, as research suggests we become better at getting along with others. "People over time gain social skills," says Katherine Fiori, a professor of psychology at Adelphi University, New York. You could read our piece on how our friendship strategies change over our lifetime, and consider if your own social goals fit your current needs – or if it could be worth modifying them.

Having reflected on your friendship expectations and goals, do you think that you're a good, supportive friend to others? If you're not sure, here are some research-backed tips to boost your own friendship skills.

One powerful trait among supportive friends is "confelicity", from the Latin word for "shared happiness". It simply means taking the time to really express joy at other people's good news, as well as sharing your own positive feelings with them. If you'd like to bring more sparkle to your friendships in 2025, finding opportunities for........

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