At a time when despite medical advances, we struggle to reach and maintain optimal health, could there be elements we overlook that would positively impact the trajectory for our health and quality of life?
The ancient Greeks said it best: “Balance is excellence”! However, as important as it is to have a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, with regular daily activity, (while minimizing obvious toxic substances), I think we seem to overlook a really important factor towards our health and wellbeing: Our social connections!
In fact, several decades of scientific data clearly reflect, that we could be killing our self at the gym every day, starving our self to loose those extra pounds and yet social isolation and insufficient social relationships, could be one of the most inconspicuous risk factors for our health and longevity!
Social relationships represent an incredible opportunity to enhance not only the quality of our life but also our survival!
THE PROBLEM
Despite increases in technology, that allow us to connect even with our high school friends we have not seen for decades at the click of a button, (that would presumably foster social connections), we are becoming increasingly isolated. We are experiencing a tremendous amount of loneliness and our level of social connection is extremely low. Research uncovered that 25% of Americans don’t have someone they feel comfortable opening up to about their woes. In fact, over the last two decades, there has been a three fold decrease in the number of Americans who report having a confidant. The lower our social connections are, the more prone we are to inflammation, anxiety, and depression, while people with high social connections, are shown to recover faster from disease and live longer.
THE EVIDENCE
In the late 80’s a review of 5 large prospective studies, concluded that social relationships predict mortality. As provocative as this hypothesis was at the time, it generated a tremendous amount of research on the impact of social relationships to health outcomes and mortality. (HouseJS, Landis KR, Umberson D (1988) Social relationships and health. Science 241: 540-545.)
The plethora of research that followed and a myriad of publications, clearly substantiated that social support is linked to improved immune function and inflammatory response mediation processes.
In 2010, a meta-analysis of 148 studies, involving 308,849 individuals followed for an average of 7.5 years, (Holt-Lunstad J, Smith T., Layton B., (2010), Social relationships and Mortality, PLoS Medicine, volume 7, issue 7, e1000316), provided empirical evidence nearly 30 times of what was reported by previous studies, to support the criteria for insufficient social relationships as a risk factor of mortality.
The data from this 2010 meta analysis is strong enough to suggest that social isolation needs to be added to the list of well documented risk factors, since the mortality risk of social isolation, has been shown to be comparable to smoking, drinking 6 alcoholic drinks per day, not exercising and twice as harmful as obesity!
The next steps in the research of these profound findings, is to further understand the mechanism of action and protective factors of social relationships. Current research, illuminates several different biological pathways, that can justify how social relationships influence disease end points and greatly impact health outcomes, for example in depression and stress mediation. One of the ways strong social relationships impact health is through a strong ability to buffer effects of stress. Social support appears to sustain the organism by promoting adopting behavior or neuroendocrine responses in the face of stress. In other words, despite the stressors one may face on a day to day basis, strong social relationships, have been proven to be a significant shield against the way our body responds to external stressors, neutralizing their impact and minimizing the symptoms of stress we experience.
Considering stress is the epidemic of the century and has now been proven to be linked to 90% of today’s disease, we could greatly benefit from improving our health through nurturing healthy attachments to other people.
THE SOLUTION
We now know that the quantity and quality of our social relationships is a significant predictor of psychological and physical health. This knowledge should be used to develop interventions and policies that can greatly improve public health and clinical practice. The question is what can we do at the individual level to improve our social connections?
Here are my top 5 ways we can take advantage of the science on our day to day life and enhance our health and happiness through the art of human connection:
1. Elevate human connection on your priority list.
Most of us, struggle to manage the little time we have against the overwhelming list of things we have to do every day. However, we can choose to replace solitary activities with ones that foster community. Is there an interest you have that involves collaboration with like minded souls? You could sign up to take a dance class, volunteer at a local non profit organization for a cause you are passionate about, or join a hiking group. The camaraderie that develops amongst people that have a common bond can lead to significant relationships that are based on healthy relational patterns.
2. Nurture the relationships you already have.
In this information overload modern life we live in, we sometimes take for granted what we already have. If we are lucky to have people in our life that love and support us, nurture those relationships! The research of John Gottman, Ph.D., has shown that doing the small things often is all it takes to build healthy long lasting relationships that can withstand the storms of life. Every day, take a few moments to recount what it is that you love about the important people in your life and express your fondness and admiration often. Whatever we put our attention to grows! Don’t let your demanding schedule dilute your focus on what seems to be the most important component to your health and wellbeing.
3. Nurture your own ability for empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel what another person is feeling. Although we are built to feel other people empathically, our fear based society has conditioned our mind to look for differences between us and others. We are all different and we can easily release our negative emotions by identifying and focusing on our differences with others. What if we switch our attention to having empathy for the woman that cut us off on the freeway? Chances are, she too had to get lunches ready and kids dropped off to school before she could catch her early morning flight. How does it help us to get mad at her? We have been conditioned to get frustrated with others as a way to discharge the stress we feel within. But we need to remember that our nervous system, is built much like a sounding board, not only reflecting and impacting the people around us, but also constantly changing depending on where we direct our energy and attention. When we see someone else in pain, our brain regions associated with pain get activated…we feel their pain. Equally, when you see someone smiling, the facial muscles in our face get activated… We can start being the change we want to see and increase the grey matter in the regions of our brain associated with empathy by simply having empathic experiences. I promise you, the results will be amazing!
4. Brave vulnerability!
We are often too scared to show our true colors and we prefer to play it safe by presenting the “facade of the invincible” to the outside world! We stay locked up in our “kingdoms of isolation”, never letting anyone see our true beauty. We seldom express any needs and even if our heart is aching, we say we are doing great! We don’t want to come across too “needy”, so we tippy-toe around issues and would rather put our energy into building an impression of perfection. Although undoubtedly, one has to earn the right to hear our story, there is so much power in being courageous enough to show our authentic self with no fear of being judged or not accepted. It seems that the great effort we make to fit in, is the exact obstacle to true connection. But most importantly, not being willing to be ourselves, reflects a lack of self acceptance.
The absolutely brilliant researcher Brene Brown Ph.D., whose outstanding research has uncovered that perfectionism is nothing other than a hidden fear of “not being good enough” said it best: “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
5. Savor human connection.
We make the mistake of expecting to find people who totally get us, with whom minimal effort is needed to enjoy connectedness. We therefore pull away when we identify the slightest difference between us and another, hoping that “some day” we will meet “the one” in love but also in friendships. In actual fact, “to relate” by the dictionary definition, means “to make a connection between two different things”. Even when someone behaves in a way that ruffles our feathers, it does not serve us to take it personally. Every single one of us, will behave according to our degree of evolution at that moment in time. He who breaks your heart dreams of having robust healthy relationships too, they just don’t know how yet!
However, the way we translate human interactions, promotes the development of neural connections in different parts of our brain. Our automatic, conditioned way of thinking establishes differences as threats and reinforces the development of brain regions that are associated with negative traits, (like hypervigilance) and ultimately this creates imbalances in our nervous system.
It is up to us, to direct our thoughts, state and actions to aid the development of brain regions that are associated with inner strengths instead. Once we recognize this truth, we will no longer feel threatened by the differences we may have with another and we can cherish others love and their different perspectives, as a way to enhance our human experience.
We live at an incredible time, with robust research outcomes that literally can hold our hand through living out a healthy and long life. We know one by one all the risk factors that can interfere with our optimal health and scientists have uncovered the exact mechanism of action that relate risk factors, to the path that leads us to the big killers of our time, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The truth is we cannot control many things in life that hi-jack our nervous system and deprive us of our valuable resources.
But if we really want to receive the biggest return on the investment of our time and effort, that is 100% within our control, the simple act of love and kindness towards our fellow human beings, may very well be the biggest opportunity to enhance our health and happiness!