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There’s nothing more healing than having a night out with your friends to break up the stress of the week. Just spending time laughing and even venting with your besties can take the weight of the world off your shoulders. Suddenly, life feels worth living! While it’s been proven that women need a girls’ night every 22 days to live much better lives, it turns out guys need to hang with the boys way more than that to stay healthy.

According to research from the University of Oxford, men should probably be grabbing drinks with their buddies more often than they do. The study, conducted by Robin Dunbar, a psychologist and director of Oxford University’s social and evolutionary neuroscience research group, determined just how often men should be seeing their other male friends.

Men need a night out with the boys at least twice a week to stay healthy.

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Researchers found that men should meet up with buddies not just once, but twice a week in order to reap the full benefits of male friendship. Men who make sure to maintain social groups were also less likely to suffer from depression caused by worries about money and job insecurity. They’re also able to recover more quickly from illnesses than those with less social contact.

“Bonds can be formed through a range of activities from team sports to male banter — or simply having a pint with your pals on a Friday night,” Dunbar explained. “However, the key to maintaining strong friendships is to meet up twice a week and do stuff with the four people closest to you.”

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There are many benefits to strong male friendships.

As life gets in the way, men don’t always make time for outings with friends the way they should, but from a wellness perspective, they should. Some benefits include a stronger immune system, the release of endorphins, a decrease in anxiety levels, and even higher levels of generosity. Despite the positives, most men don’t actually spend one night a week with their friends, let alone two.

The same study found that most men get far less male bonding time than they need, with 40% only able to make a “guys’ night” a weekly affair. Dunbar suggested that, despite spending 20% of their day interacting through other means, men actually need to meet face to face to keep their friendships strong. 

Grabbing drinks seems to be the best way for men to connect with each other. In a national survey by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), researchers found that those who drank at local pubs tended to socialize in smaller groups, which encouraged whole-group conversation, while those drinking at bigger bars in the city participated in far fewer group conversations.

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Most men don’t have close friends in the same way that women do.

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According to research from the Survey Center on American Life, men appear to have suffered a far steeper decline in maintaining their friendships than women. Thirty years ago, a majority of men (55%) reported having at least six close friends. Today, that number has been cut in half. 

Slightly more than one in four (27%) men have six or more close friends today. Fifteen percent of men have no close friendships at all. This is most concerning, considering there’s a male loneliness epidemic happening. Most men are reporting intense feelings of isolation because they don’t have any close platonic relationships.

While there are undoubtedly countless reasons why men struggle to maintain friendships as they age, one point experts keep coming back to is societal conditioning. Somewhere between adolescence and young adulthood, men are taught that relying on friends and having a network of support is inherently feminine. To put it simply, they are taught that real men don’t need to share their feelings.

Judy Yi-Chung Chu, who teaches a class on boys’ psychological development at Stanford University, told CNN, “We gender relationships as feminine. If that’s a feminine thing, it becomes a weakness or a liability if (men) admit to needing friendships.” Men, in turn, force themselves to hide their vulnerability, and a loneliness epidemic is born.

Considering we need friends to feel any semblance of happiness and stability, the fact that men are being robbed of these close friendships is a tragedy that hurts everyone. And without addressing the situation, it’s only going to get worse. 

Parents need to prioritize with their boys that friendships are integral to their health, and for men who were taught otherwise, they need to look to the women in their lives and emulate their relationships. In the meantime, start prioritizing a boys’ night twice a week. Even if all you talk about is sports and work, it’s a start. Get comfortable sharing, and the rest will happen naturally.

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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.