You probably have seen articles about how important friendships are for our psychological, emotional, and physical health. Friends help us celebrate good times, but they are especially important when times are tough.

When life is hard and the world is confusing, friendships are particularly important. Just being with a friend can lower your stress level, boost your self-confidence and self-esteem, and improve your mental state. Research has shown that friendships can improve your overall physical health, as well.

But uncertain times are also hard on friendships. These days, political differences and conflicting personal beliefs are wreaking havoc on old connections and making it hard to trust new ones.

How can you nurture and protect old friendships and, even harder, make new ones to support you through these difficult times?

In order to answer this question, you will first need to think hard about what you mean when you call someone your friend.

Meredith*, for example, who lived alone through the pandemic, told me, “I don’t know if I would have made it without my friends. At the time, most of them were my sorority sisters from college. We had all hung out through college and had stayed close afterwards, even though we were in different cities and some of us had high-pressure jobs. It was hard to get together, but we had managed it.”

She told me that the pandemic brought them closer again. “We had Zoom wine nights, watched shows together on FaceTime, played bridge online, and we shared our pain and our zany efforts to manage the isolation.”

Even so, she said that a few friendships ended during that time. “Some of my friends started taking risks that I couldn’t support, and they got angry with me when I questioned their........

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