Friends and Headspace: skills checklist

Friends and Headspace: 9 skills, each with steps, a quiz and a printable checklist, covering asking for help, listening, keeping and making friends, anger, saying no, grief and checking in.

Many men reach their thirties with fewer close friends than they had at twenty, and without the habits that keep friendships going. At the same time, the moments that test us, a breakup, a loss, a stretch of anger or low mood, are the moments when having people around matters most.

This category treats those as practical skills rather than personality traits. You will learn how to ask for help with a specific request, how to listen so people feel heard, how to keep friendships on a schedule and make new ones as an adult, how to cool down before anger does damage, how to say no without guilt, how to support a grieving friend, how to check on a friend who seems off, and how to get through a breakup without disappearing.

These pages are not therapy and do not replace it. Where a situation involves thoughts of suicide or self-harm, each page names the 988 suicide and crisis line, which you can call or text any time in the US, and 911 for immediate danger.