Social Wellness



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|Social Wellness |

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|The Master Key |

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|To Health, Wealth And Happiness |

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|By Rick Bateman |

Introduction

We all want to feel that someone cares about us. The little moments of our daily lives, especially the positive experiences, cause us to instinctively reach out to share them with someone. If no one is there to connect and share with, the meaning of our experiences, and therefore our lives, is somehow diminished. We shrug our shoulders, and move on. Without others to share our experiences, life loses its flavor. Even if we achieve remarkable career or financial success in our lives, if we have no one to share it with, it is a hollow victory.

The premise of this book is that we are social animals and born to need to feel connected to others in order to be healthy and happy. It does not matter if we have an outgoing personality or are quiet and shy. It does not matter what our gender, race or culture of origin is. The need to feel connected to others, to have close, personal friends, is universal and built into us at the deepest level.

Most of the ideas in this book will be new to you. They are new ideas not because we never knew them but because we have forgotten them. We have forgotten that we need each other and why, forgotten how to connect with others and forgotten how to cultivate friendship and how to nurture it.

This book will explain what social wellness is, why it is important and how you can make changes in your life to improve it yours. It will provide you with a new awareness of the many small opportunities throughout the day for you to increase the potential number of new friends in your life. It will explain how you can cultivate a healthy, growing circle of close, personal friends and have an active social life. It will show you how doing so will make you feel healthier and happier.

The application of the ideas you will find in this book transformed my life in the course of just over one year. At the age of fifty I found myself living alone, divorced, my children grown, facing weekend after weekend with no plans and no friends. I went to work every day, but as I did not have one single friend at the time, evenings were no different than weekends. I can still recall finding myself alone in my apartment, standing and staring out the patio windows one Friday evening as I considered another looming weekend, thinking that if this was the deal for the next thirty years – get up and go to work, buy the groceries, pick up the dry cleaning, pay the bills, take out the garbage, get up and go to work – that maybe I did not want to sign up for it.

I had hit the bottom before in my life and had always been blessed with the inclination and wherewithal to decide to figure it out and fix it. So that’s what I did on this occasion.

On a weekend one year after asking myself if I wanted to go on with my life the way it was, I had cause to be amazed. This weekend was very different from the ones I had grown so familiar to over the previous years. Instead of staring alone out of the patio window that Friday evening, I was at a friend’s house party with over twenty of my other friends. The truly amazing thing was that every one of them had met through me! How was this possible? What had happened?

Very simply, what had happened was that I had decided to find out how I had ended up alone and what I had to do to change it. Along the way I discovered that I was not the only one with this problem. A little research informed me that social isolation is epidemic in our western society and a growing problem world wide with people of all age groups. At that moment, I realized that if I could find a way to reach out to others and help them connect and make friends, that my problem would also be solved. That is how I ended up one year later at a party with twenty of my closest friends.

So what was it that I discovered? What had I done to create this change? Well lets start again at the beginning and define just…

What Social Wellness Is

In a nutshell, social wellness is the positive effect friends have on your mental and physical health. In quantitative terms it is a measure of your health based on the number of close, personal friends you have, how often you spend time with them in person and how often you make new, lasting friendships.

Recent scientific research has provided conclusive evidence that the need for friends in our lives is not optional as previously thought but is in fact as essential to our well being as are healthy sources of air, water, food and physical activity. Without these things we survive, but we do not live well and not as long as we might.

As a result of a study by Duke University in 2001 it was suggested that the magnitude of the health risk associated with social isolation, the opposite of social wellness, is comparable with that of cigarette smoking. Social isolation has been clinically linked to chronic illnesses such as heart disease and shown to have a significant impact on the likelihood of experiencing illness in general. It has also been shown to have a dramatic impact on the process of recovery from either illness or injury. The reason is simple, social isolation lowers the function of our immune system. It has also repeatedly been shown to be a major factor in a number mental health issues, including depression.

Social wellness means having a number of intimate friends and an active social life. By “active social life” I mean in this case that you see your friends on a regular, preferably weekly basis. It is entirely possible, and in fact quite common, for people to have an “active social life”, attending a whirl of parties and functions, and yet have no friends with whom they share a close connection.

Social wellness works a lot like physical fitness. It pays off immediately and in the long run. Similarly, also though generally enjoyable and rewarding, it does not come without discipline, effort and challenges. You get out what you put in. A lack of physical fitness can send you to the doctor. But you don’t go to the doctor to get fit, you go to the local gym or start a personal fitness program. Similarly, the local offices of the government social services agency may be where we end up due to a lack of social wellness but its not where we go to improve our lives in that dimension. Like physical fitness, improvements in the area of social wellness require changes to our lifestyle. To increase our social wellness we also need our own “personal fitness program”. Later in this book I will explain how to create one.

While we are on the subject of definitions, social wellness is not the same as on-line “social networking” for one absolutely critical reason – personal contact is essential to social wellness, as I will explain later, while meeting in person generally plays no part in on-line social networks. In fact on-line social networking can have a significant negative impact on a persons social wellness.

Another term commonly associated with social wellness is “social capital”. Social capital is a political science term and is concerned mainly with the health of society from a civic perspective. In contrast social wellness focuses primarily on the emotional and physical health of the individual.

Finally, to allay any fears as to where we might be going with this, social wellness is NOT the same as “networking”, an activity commonly associated with business mixers. Business networking among acquaintances and associates results in transaction based relationships whereas social wellness is the result of trust based relationships. Only trust based relationships, those you have with your close, personal friends, produce the positive effects on your health and happiness and result in an increased level of social wellness.

Part One: The Causes And Impact Of Social Isolation

Social, psychological and medical research has now demonstrated conclusively that there is a direct correlation between the degree to which a person feels connected to others and their physical and mental health. Here are some of the most commonly known effects of NOT feeling a connection to others:

▪ Generally decreased feeling of vitality, less energy and feeling tired more often.

▪ Greater likelihood of chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.

▪ More frequent bouts of sickness, such as colds or flu, and longer recovery times.

▪ Longer recovery times from injury.

▪ Regular feelings of loneliness.

▪ Increased likelihood of depression.

▪ Decreased level of happiness and satisfaction with life in general.

▪ Shorter life spans.

Examples from one day’s media stories - Thursday, August 30, 2007

▪ The toll loneliness takes accumulates with time and goes right down to the cellular level. -- University of Chicago.

▪ Lonely middle-aged and older people report more chronic stress and felt more helpless and threatened than non-lonely people with the same number of stressful challenges and blood pressure was 16 points higher in lonely people over 65.

-- Current Directions in Psychological Science.

▪ Loneliness is linked to accelerated wear and tear on the body, due to the interruption of restorative sleep. Even college-age lonely people had poorer quality sleep. -- Science Daily

▪ Longevity increased by 22 per cent among people 70 and older with a large circle of friends compared to those with the fewest. -- Australian Centre for Aging Studies.

▪ The weakest immune response to flu vaccine among young people is found in the most isolated and lonely first-year university students. -- Journal of Health Psychology.

▪ Alzheimer's disease is twice as likely to develop in lonely people. -- Archives of General Psychiatry.

▪ Feelings of social isolation are linked to alterations in the activity of genes that control inflammation. The study provides a molecular framework for understanding why social factors are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, viral infections and cancer. -- University of California

Why haven’t I heard of the importance of Social Wellness before?

You probably have not heard about the importance of social wellness before because it is a new idea and an emerging science.

Once upon a time the following were new ideas too:

▪ Germs

▪ Smoking causes cancer

▪ Physical fitness

▪ Global warming

There was a time when each of these ideas, which we now accept as self evident, were unknown. Each was challenged when proposed as far fetched, if not in some way dangerous, by one group or another. Like these in their own time, social wellness is a new idea.

News articles about global warming only began appearing in any number in the late 1990’s and the idea did not really become considered a self evident belief until after Al Gore’s ground breaking movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” was released in August of 2006. The majority of people had not heard of the issue before that, yet as soon as late 2007 the majority of countries in the world were passing laws, not just signing agreements, with regard to global warming. It took only ten years to go from being a fringe idea known to a few scientists, to being at the top of the public and political agenda.

Articles to do with social wellness are only now, at the turn of this century, beginning to be published in scientific, medical and other journals. The volume of research and findings is building but it is not yet an idea that is widely known. Public awareness with regard to social wellness today is where global warming’s was in the early 1990’s.

Only the development of our new computer systems, with their ability to find patterns in vast amounts of data, has enabled us to see conclusively that social isolation has a significant health impact. That is why it is now a new idea and an emerging science you have not heard of before. We needed modern computers to enable us to become aware of the connection. Let me give you an couple of examples.

In modern hospitals, where everything is scrupulously tracked and recorded, we can now see the relation ship between identical procedures, recovery times and the number of visitors each patient has. The more visitors a patient has, the faster their wounds heal and the sooner they can be sent home.

With heart attack patients, the more social support they have in place when they go home, the more likely they will survive. They will recover faster and are less likely to have a recurrence.

Its not the chicken soup that makes you better, it’s the person who brings you the chicken soup.

Why Social Isolation Makes Us Sick – A Theory

Although scientific and medical research is rapidly demonstrating a clear and direct connection between social wellness and its impact on emotional and physical health, the scientific community has yet to publish anything universally accepted as a definitive cause. Not being either a scientist of doctor I can venture where they cannot. I offer the following as a theory only for your consideration.

I believe the reason we get sick as a result of social isolation is because we are social animals and that feeling isolated causes us to experience chronic stress. The symptoms of chronic stress and social isolation are identical. It is the stress, or rather the harmful hormones associates with stress, that makes us sick.

Scientific and medical researchers have investigated the question regarding why social isolation has such a negative impact on our mental and physical health, for many years. That it does have a negative impact on our mental and physical health is now generally accepted but not why it does. The question has been investigated by professionals in the fields of psychology, neurology, oncology, cardiology, and every other field of medicine and science you can imagine except the one which I believe provides the answer – zoology.

In every case scientists have investigated the problem as if the answer was to be found in the individual, despite the obvious paradox of this approach to a social issue. Professionals have poked and prodded countless individuals to try to find the answer without ever stepping back to see the bigger picture the way a zoologist would, looking at an animals entire ecosphere.

No researcher I am aware of has yet examined the detrimental effects of social isolation from the zoological perspective. Yet if a zoologist was called to a zoo to diagnose a health problem with one of the animals, what are the first few basic questions he or she is going to ask the zookeeper?

1. Is their diet appropriate?

2. Is their physical environment appropriate i.e. is it the right size, temperature, etc?

3. Are their emotional needs being met i.e. are there things they like to do or need to have? Do they have the right living space?

4. Are their social needs being met? Are there others of their own kind they can interact with?

Notice how doctors dealing with you may investigate various forms of the first three questions, but rarely the fourth.

Why would this disconnection from others have such an impact?

Social animals can be defined by two primary characteristics – they depend on each other to get food and to defend themselves. In other words, they depend on each other for their survival. Some predators, such as wolves or lions, use a coordinated attack. They cannot execute such an attack alone and thus alone cannot acquire food. Other social animals defend themselves from predators by grouping closely together and uniformly facing the threat or by using alarm calls. Social animals will defend their food resources as well as themselves and weaker animals in the group.

Social animals are evolved or designed in such a way that the survival of the individual depends on the other members of the group, whether that be a pod of whales, a pack of

wolves, a pride of lions or a herd of elephants. They literally cannot survive alone.

Therefore individuals feeling cut off from their group will naturally be in a state of high anxiety. In physiological terms they are highly stressed, meaning specific physiological and emotional changes will be taking place.

These changes are made to happen when the hypothalamus, a small region of the brain that links the nervous systems to the endocrine system raises the alarm. The job of the hypothalamus is to maintain stasis, that is, the status quo, the normal function of the body. Its like a thermostat. If things change too much, the hypothalamus directs the endocrine system to try to correct the situation. The endocrine system then produces biochemicals, or hormones, to affect the changes required.

One of the main hormones produced when the endocrine system tries to restore the bodies normal function is Cortisol. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone. It increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances the brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.

Cortisol also curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight-or-flight situation. It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes.

The complex alarm system also communicates with regions of the brain that control mood, motivation and fear.

Higher and more prolonged levels of stress, and therefore cortisol in the bloodstream, have been shown to have the following negative effects:

▪ Impaired cognitive performance

▪ Suppressed thyroid function

▪ Blood sugar imbalances

▪ Decreased bone density

▪ Decrease in muscle tissue

▪ Higher blood pressure

▪ Lowered immune system function

▪ Systemic inflammation

▪ Increased abdominal fat

Compare the above changes in the body due to the presence of cortisol as a result of long term stress with the symptoms I listed earlier common to social isolation:

▪ Generally decreased feeling of vitality, less energy and feeling tired more often.

▪ Greater likelihood of chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.

▪ More frequent bouts of sickness, such as colds or flu, and longer recovery times.

▪ Longer recovery times from injury.

▪ Regular feelings of loneliness.

▪ Increased likelihood of depression.

▪ Decreased level of happiness and satisfaction with life in general.

▪ Shorter life spans

In fact, compare the symptoms of chronic stress, long term systemic inflammation and social isolation and you will see they are virtually identical. That is because social isolation causes chronic stress, which causes systemic inflammation, which causes severe, long term tissue damage and has a negative effect on emotional well being.

That is how social isolation makes us sick and shortens our lives.

The Emotional Dimension

Yet I believe the hormones of stress are not identical. I believe different causes result in different hormones and that there are specific hormones released by the endocrine system depending on the situation and in the case of social isolation One of those hormones causes us to feel lonely. All feelings are generated by hormones and I believe feeling lonely is no less caused by hormonal changes than the feeling of being in love. Why would the body generate a hormone, a biochemical, to make us feel lonely? For the same reason you have the sensation of pain when you are cut or burned. The body needs to get your attention immediately and it needs to motivate you to take action to change the situation.

According to the ancient rules still running our bodies and minds, we depend on others for our survival. Therefore when we are feeling disconnected from others, the body perceives this as a risk to our survival and, just as with pain, it needs a way to get our attention and motivate us to change the situation. To do this in the case of social isolation it creates in us the feeling of loneliness. It may effect this change using the hormone epinephrine, since research has shown this to be present in higher levels in lonely people, however far too little research has been done in this area to draw specific conclusions.

Yet there is another reason for the negative impact on our mental health when socially isolated, one I do not believe is connected to hormonal changes.

Friends are a sounding board and interactions with them provide us with feedback regarding our thoughts and feelings. Without friends who will provide us honest and unbiased feedback, we can easily become lost in the maze of our own thoughts. There are probably many, many processes involved but I know of and can relate two examples here.

Often when we are thinking about a problem in our lives, we can go ‘round and ‘round in our minds and never come to a conclusive decision. If however we call a friend and talk it over with them, we often come to see our way more clearly. Why? What happens that make the difference? I believe it is the fact that having to articulate our thoughts and convey them to another using speech is the reason. Engaging the part of the brain required to speak, seems to have an effect on our thoughts. Our friend may have offered no advice whatsoever and yet after the conversation we somehow are clearer about what we must do. I believe this is one of the reasons that friends help keep us from descending into mental disorders.

Another reason is that they help provide us with guidance in the most literal sense of the word. If left to our own thoughts, we slowly become unsure about our own mental health. That uncertainty itself then becomes a contributing factor. Without feedback from others, we can indeed become increasingly eccentric if not ill.

The importance of this function was brought home to me by the most simple experience. As we were out walking one day one of my dearest friends turned to me and asked, “Am I ok?” She was of course asking me to tell her if she had become eccentric or was on the path to something worse. I assured her that she was perfectly fine.

A seed of doubt had entered her mind. A seed I was pleased to see vanish instantly with my assurances. Yet without a friend to provide such assurances what happens to that seed?

It appears that just as we need each other in order to maintain a healthy physical system, we need each other, literally, to maintain healthy minds. Just as with our physical health, we are not meant to function independently but interdependently. Without another trusted friend to provide us with feedback regarding our mental functioning, we are much more likely to become lost. Friends are the north star of emotional wellness.

Metrics

In the research thus far into social wellness, there are two interesting findings. One is a finding by the U.S. based Gallup organization reported by Tom Rath in his book on social wellness in the workplace titled, “Vital Friends”. After working with eight million different records, they found that physical and emotional social wellness indicators did not markedly improve until a person had four friends. Further, the wellness indicators did not rise with additional friends beyond four. It seems that according to this research at any rate, four is the magic number.

Tom and the Gallup organization offer no explanation for this however once again, I have my own theory and that is that four is the minimum number for a group of humans living in primitive circumstances required to survive, and that the most ancient centers of our brain know this and react accordingly.

Regardless of the fact that we do not know for sure why the “four friend effect” occurs, it does and we must work with the reality that it does. If we don’t, our bodies will react with their painful and damaging biochemical motivators regardless of our intellectual objections.

Other research into social isolation seems to indicate that connecting with a friend on at least a weekly basis, although not necessarily the same one, is necessary to maintain physical and emotional health factors. Given that the week is the pulse of modern life, this is a simple metric to use as a target to keep us on track. I have no doubt that the origins of whatever the timetable actually is, is much older.

Part Two: The Roots Of The Problem

Low levels of social wellness are common in our society for a variety of reasons. There may also be reasons why our own individual lives exhibit poor social wellness. We live now in a world of cubicles, apartments, ear buds, dark glasses, chat rooms and television. We climb into our car and click the garage door opener to travel from our gated community to our corporate underground parking. We are increasingly cut off from one another. We are too busy multi-tasking to connect at a deep and personal level.

Spending social time with others has declined dramatically since the early nineteen sixties. Attendance in civic or social groups has declined to the point where many traditional organizations are unsustainable. They have minimal core of aging members and the organizations will not outlive them because there are no new members. This is happening in traditional places of worship, sports leagues and in every kind of club or society. Unfortunately, as we gave up membership in these organizations, we also gave up the social connectivity they provided and thus the social wellness inherent in them. We threw the baby out with the bathwater.

The primary substitute for social participation has been television. If you are old enough to remember life before television, you may recall your parents having friends over to your house to visit, going as a family to spend the evening at a neighbor’s house, or the recreation rooms once so common in homes at that time. You may recall your parents or even yourself playing card or board games with others in the evening or on weekends. Now what do the majority of people do in the evening? Watch television.

Television is primarily about people and relationships and has become our surrogate social circle. We gave up having friends for watching “Friends”. Film and television have done more than any other force to change our concept of our selves within society. Where once we understood the interdependence of our lives we have been relentlessly presented with the ideal of the “self made man”, the rugged individual, as if this was our nature and our highest, truest self. But as social animals we are not evolved or designed to be individuals but rather to be interdependent.

The willingness to initiate a social connection depends on our level of trust in general and that too has declined significantly over the past four generations. 80% of the members of the generation born between 1900 and 1930 believed “most people could be trusted.” By the time the generation born after 1970 were on the scene, only 40% of them believed most people could be trusted.

The average person in North America now has just two friends and that figure has been on the decline for the past twenty years. Additionally, on average 25% of the population lives alone, an increase from 18% just twenty years ago. Keep in mind that that is the average. The figure is much higher in urban than in rural areas. For example, according to the Statistics Canada 2001 census, the number of people living alone in my home town of Victoria, British Columbia, was a staggering 49%. Every other household has just one occupant.

In addition to the impact of societal changes and technology, some individuals are more likely than others to neglect their social wellness. Three personal levels of existence can contribute to an individual’s finding themselves with a diminished circle of friends – they are the biological, sociological and psychological.

The biological level is your personal DNA. You were born with a certain nature and if you are a shy and quiet person you are naturally going to meet with and connect to fewer people.

The sociological level is your culture of origin. If you come from a culture where eye contact is not encouraged, or where “good girls” don’t talk to strangers, you will naturally find it much more difficult to connect socially.

The psychological level is your personal conditioning, the behaviors you have learned over your lifetime. If you have conditioned yourself to spend the majority of your time in activities such as reading or watching TV, you will have far fewer opportunities to connect to others.

Another reason social isolation happens is ageing. The older you get the more an effect attrition has on social wellness because people rarely notice the fact that the size of their social circle is steadily shrinking. It is an insidious process. In every dimension of our life, if we are not consciously working to grow and improve our health, nature takes its toll. If you do not exercise regularly you get weaker and unhealthier. If you do not save and invest, your financial health suffers. Similarly if you are not constantly investing in your social wellness, it is decreasing.

The size of your social circle has been decreasing since you left school. It decreased when you started working because you had less time and energy to spend with your friends. It decreased when you started a family for the same reason. It decreased when you retired because you lost whatever few social connections you had with your coworkers. If you do nothing to reverse the situation it will decrease dramatically when you become elderly and the members of your small circle of close friends begin to pass on.

People leave our social circle for innumerable reasons. Some are mentioned above but over the years those in our circle of friends simply get married, have children, move on or move away. Slowly, imperceptibly to most of us, our circle of friends diminishes.

Another cause of social isolation, especially in western societies, is the “only one” mindset. This highly romantic mindset considers intimacy to be exclusive, something that can be experienced with only one other person and that person is your husband or wife or equivalent. If that relationship comes to an end, as it does over 50% of the time, the parties are left with no one with whom they share an intimate connection.

This “only one” belief also assumes that all our needs, every part of our being, can be successfully expressed and shared within the confines of that exclusive relationship. Since this is highly unrealistic and unlikely, we can often be isolated in some form even while in a loving relationship. A part or parts of us are chronically isolated because they are shared with no one.

The wisest and healthiest couples cultivate and nurture a wide circle of friends to no less a degree than a single person does and for the same reasons. I believe this attitude is one of the greatest gifts loving partners can give each other.

Unfortunately, most of the factors that increase social isolation such as technology and declining levels of civic involvement and trust, are only getting worse and social wellness is decreasing dramatically.

Finally, I believe the main reason we neglect our social wellness however is that no one ever told us how important it is!

In school you were given an academic education. You also had classes in physical education, and perhaps “home economics” or trades training. You likely even had classes in sex education, but you did not have a class about the importance of social wellness.

You were not made aware of the importance of this critical dimension of your life at school or at home unless by example. At work the message is that socializing is not only unproductive but potentially career limiting.

Think of how many courses, books and other resources there are available regarding dietary issues and exercise. Every medical professional on earth chants the mantra of diet and exercise. There are countless doctors, societies, businesses and government bodies dedicated to our mental and physical health. Almost without exception they treat you as if you are an independent entity and your problems have no connection to your social situation.

Wherever you are right now you can go directly to a resource to address you physical or mental health needs. You will be able to find a doctor, a book, or a fitness center. But where are you going to go to improve your social wellness?

Many medical professionals know that with some of their patients the roots of their problems lie in their social isolation. The problem is that they have no education and no training in the subject and there are no resources at their disposal to recommend. They are also bound by the conventions of their profession. They have no prescription.

Part Three: The Solution - How to start your own social circle

Since the body is still operating according to ancient rules laid down over millennia that say if we are feeling socially isolated then we are in danger, we have little choice but to send it different message in order to get it to turn the hormone taps off. The wonderful thing is that to improve your social wellness you don’t have to get up at five AM and put on your track shoes, eat tofu or chew nicotine gum. Remarkably it is the easiest lifestyle change to make yet will benefit every dimension of your life.

When you want to accomplish something it is essential to have a clear outcome in mind. Phrases like, “get fit”, “achieve financial security” or “improve my social wellness” are well intended but not very useable. It is much better if you develop standards or rules about these kinds of things, in order to make it easier to know what to do and to track your progress.

For example it is much easier if you have the following physical fitness standards:

▪ you must weigh 165 pounds

▪ you can do twenty pushups and thirty sit-ups without stopping

▪ you can walk five kilometers in less than 45 minutes

▪ you can walk up ten stories without being out of breath

The above list represents the standards you have for yourself regarding physical fitness. If you maintain them, you will consider yourself physically fit.

Likewise, its easier to maintain your nutritional wellness if you have the following standards:

▪ you do not eat wheat, dairy, salt, sugar or any refined foods

▪ you eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day

▪ you eat five light meals per day

▪ you do not smoke or drink alcohol or coffee

You might develop similar standards around your financial health or even your spiritual health. Its no different if you want to develop social wellness.

Here are some ideas to consider for creating your own standards, plan or map for creating social wellness for yourself:

▪ When someone invites you to a social event, you generally say yes

▪ You participate in at least four social events per month

▪ You initiate and facilitate at least one social event per month

▪ You invite people over to your home at least four times per year

▪ When you are out, you make eye contact with others, smile and initiate a conversation

▪ You have cards with your contact information and you give them to people you meet and feel comfortable with

▪ When you are at an activity, you make others feel welcome and included

▪ You have at least four close, personal friends

▪ You spend time with one of your close, personal friends at least once a week

▪ You make at least one new close, personal friend every twelve months

▪ You learn about others so that you can let them know things you have in common

Now, all of us have epiphanies and get fired up with some new plan for our life and then over time we backslide. That’s because this new lifestyle takes effort and involves discomfort.

What we need is a way to deal with the attraction of comfort, some kind of counter force to keep us from going back to our old, comfortable ways. Normally, even when we are feeling emotional pain it is not enough to motivate us to move beyond our state of comfort. Even if it is, then often as soon as we alleviate it a little then we no longer have enough pain to motivate us to keep going. We lose ten pounds and then go off our diet.

We want the pleasures of physical fitness, financial security, emotional wellbeing and social wellness, but the short term pain involved in accomplishing these things is greater than the long term pain of doing nothing. Only when the circumstances of our lives cause us to associate unusually high levels of emotional pain with our present situation do we take action. The inconvenient truth is that it is the level of pain we feel in any situation that motivates us to either take action or not.

The good news is that we can use this old bit of programming code to our advantage. Here is a simple five step exercise that will keep you from backsliding.

1. Make a list of ten negative things that will happen to you if you DO NOT change.

Visualize this future life and embrace the feelings that accompany it. How does it feel? Are you signing up for this?

2. Make a list of ten positive things that will get better or result from your new behavior. Visualize this future life and embrace the feelings that accompany it. How does it feel? Would you rather sign up for this?

3. Review these two lists and this exercise at least once per week and it will keep you from backsliding.

4. Schedule creating social activities into your calendar

The Social Wellness Ladder

As you set out on this journey to social wellness, its important to keep in mind that there are a few specific steps along the way that are milestones. Certainly the first is to say yes to social invitations when in the past you would have said no. Once you have been attending social events for three months or more however, its time for the next step which is to initiate and facilitate or host a social activity yourself. This is really critical as it moves you from being a passive participant, dependent on others, to interdependence. Remember independence is not the ultimate goal here, interdependence is.

It’s critical that you move to this step because in order to take control of your social wellness you need to be making it happen rather than hoping it will happen. It creates a very different mindset. Once you have done it a few times you will realize how incredibly simple it is. Its not that any of this is actually difficult, its just that we have forgotten how.

The next step is to invite people into your home. This might be for a dinner, a movie or games night, or anything you would enjoy sharing with others. The reason this is a key step is that it moves one to a new level of trust, self acceptance and confidence. Many people feel vulnerable allowing others into their home and perhaps concerned what others might think. First of all, remember trust is the foundation of all relationships and inviting people into your home says, “I trust you.” Secondly, you are saying “I trust you” in regard to sharing your vulnerable self with others. In my experience, when others are welcomed into your home they respond in a very warm and positive way.

Nobody is perfect – You won’t like everyone you meet

One of the challenges of making a commitment to improving your social wellness and growing your social circle is the fact that you won’t like everyone you meet. It is a simple fact of life that if you get out there, you will encounter folks whose company you don’t care for. It’s a package deal. This will seem so obvious to some that they may wonder at the point of writing about it, while to others, it has real potential to derail their plans.

Whether or not this is an issue for you depends to a very large degree on your nature, on what type of person you are. Some people naturally find it more difficult to emotionally deal with those whose personal style seems to conflict with their own. Keep in mind that this is perfectly natural and even more likely if you are an introvert.

When I was thinking about improving my own social wellness, I knew my own history, which was to eliminate from my life everyone who I didn’t like for some reason. Guess what? Nobodies perfect! You can find something about anybody not to like. So of course I had eliminated everybody and ended up alone. Brilliant. I decided then that if I wanted to improve my social wellness I had better find a different strategy because the one I had used up till now clearly wasn’t working.

I decided I needed to expect to like new the people I would meet. I would need to assume that there are things about them that I would like if I took the time to learn about them and get to know them. I also knew that I would need to accept others with personal styles very different than my own.

Also, once I met them, I decided I would need to look for and focus on what I could find to like about the other person. This is the meaning behind the quote, “I never met a man I didn’t like” by Will Rogers. It means that liking others is not a reaction but an intention.

A key thing inherent in these two mindsets is that I am focused on the other. In this process, I keep in mind something from, “The Likeability Factor” by Tim Sanders. In this excellent book on the art of making friends, he explains that finding “relevance” is a key step in establishing friendship. Being friendly is a great beginning, but we take the relationship to the next step only with those we discover are relevant to our own lives in some way i.e. we have some mutual views or interests. The key here is that the only way to know if you have mutual interests or views with someone is to find out about them!

It takes a village

The proverb “It takes a village to raise a child,” has its origins on the African continent. Efforts to determine its precise origins have proven fruitless. The phrase was popularized by Hilary Rodham Clinton in her 1996 book titled, “It Takes A Village”.

I use the phrase here in a broader context and to refer to what I feel is the healthiest form of social circle. I believe that since village life is what our bodies and minds are optimally evolved for, that such a social environment will be both the healthiest for us and also provide the best chance for our personal happiness and prosperity. It is also my contention that it is the absence of these particular social bonds that is the source of so many of our modern ills.

Physiologically, but more importantly neurologically, we have evolved little since the time tribal village life was the preeminent form of social structure about ten thousand years ago. Millions of years of evolution crafted and perfected us for this form of survival and it is this social model that essentially made us, flesh and bones, men and women, what we are today.

We are evolved with specific social needs and those needs are best reflected in the social structures of village life - multiple generations working together, helping each other, caring for each other, sharing stories and laughter, teaching one another, dealing with challenges, tragedies and triumphs and breaking bread together. This web of inter-dependency is the social environment which the human animal, a social animal by definition, is made for. It represents as it were our “ecological niche” and therefore our optimal environment.

Therefore as you develop your own social circle, keep in mind that for optimal health, you need not only four close, personal friends with whom you can share an intimate relationship but also friends old and young and from all walks of life who will keep you mentally healthy by challenging you and helping you see things from multiple perspectives. It takes village to raise a child yes, but it also takes a village for the adult that child will become to live a long, happy and fulfilled life.

Planning Social Activities

When the time comes that you want to start initiating social activities, here are a few suggestions:

The best predictors of future relationships are proximity and frequency, in other words, the number of times one person gets physically close to another. Think about who you were friends with as a child, at school, college or university, or at work. Physical proximity usually plays a major role. You may or may not like another person who is proximal to you, but if you do like them it is extremely likely that you will develop a relationship. There are lots of other people you could like and develop relationships with, but without spending some time with them you will never know and do so.

Just as we have personal space (about one meter on average) we have proximal space. This space is the area covered by the average room in a home. If you are within this distance in relation to another, their perception is that you are “here”. If you are beyond this distance their perception is that you are “over there”.

The second part of this equation is frequency. It is largely a matter of probability, but the more time you spend with others, the more likely you are to discover if you have mutual ways, views and interests. If you encounter members of your new social circle on a regular basis, at least twice per month, you are very likely to develop friendships with them if the other factors are present.

This is why our default strategy when feeling socially isolated is “find a group and join it.” We instinctively know the two criteria, proximity and frequency, required to create new connections. The very fact that there is a group means the members will meet on some kind of regular basis. Unfortunately, this strategy does not always work because the groups agenda, or reason for being, is likely not just to meet new people, socialize and make friends. It is usually to play bridge, save the whales, win the cup or some other focus and efforts to simply socialize are not always welcomed. However you can use the same simple strategy that they do to achieve their ends to achieve yours, create social connectivity through proximity and frequency.

Keep in mind that people prefer structure thus they prefer social events that take place in the context of an activity of some kind. The primary reason is that it takes the focus off of the participants and makes them less self-conscious. This is why things like games or sports are so popular.

By the same token, if you keep planning the same social activity then soon only those interested in that specific activity itself will show up anymore. Those who are interested primarily in the social aspect will soon drift away. Conversely, by varying the activities you guarantee that only those interested in socializing will continue to show up. The others will go join a bridge, tennis or hiking club or whatever one meets their interests.

Keep the barriers to entry low, including costs. The simpler the activity, the more people will be interested. If attendees regularly need such items as gym shoes, a tent or a knowledge of philosophy, then you are not going to have many takers on an ongoing basis. Also not everyone can afford to spend money on social activities four or more times per month. If you want to reduce this barrier to entry be sure to include plenty of things that have little or no cost such as walks or games.

Generally, keep the number of participants to any social activity to twelve or less. This is the optimal size for social situations. The reason for this is that once group sizes get larger than a dozen people, cliques form and some members begin to feel disconnected. Beyond twelve a group becomes a crowd, where one can still feel lonely. With groups smaller than twelve, people notice and take action if one of the members is not being included. Beyond this number, this behavior is less likely to occur.

Some Basic Guidelines

Here are some basic guidelines, which can be applied to almost any wellness dimension – physical, financial, social, emotional etc. but they apply universally.

Take the long view

It takes time to nurture relationships because of the critical role trust plays. It does not matter if a relationship is friendship, romance or any other, it will take time to build the trust characteristic of meaningful relationships.

Also the number of meaningful relationships one has declines naturally over time if new relationships are not created. No relationships last forever and if new relationships are not formed to replace them, a gradual decline in social wellness will result.

Take A Holistic approach

It’s easy to see in this dimension that a positive or negative relationship in one area of your life will affect all your other relationships. Just as in the physical or material dimensions, imbalance simply will not work in the social dimension. An unhealthy relationship will drag the others down while a positive relationship in one will bring energy and other benefits to the others.

Do it regularly

Relationships are living things which require regular care and attention. Frequency matters. There’s another aspect of this principle which is that the relationship you have with another is not the same thing as the other. Simply being with the other does not at all mean you spent time investing in the relationship any more than just standing in a gym is the same as working out. The relationship between you and another is a unique and separate thing from the two of you and requires regular focus and attention.

Put in more than you take out

Its easy to take your relationships for granted. If you take more than you give in a relationship you will soon find that the relationship is over. The key to putting in more than you take out of a relationship is twofold: taking responsibility to create opportunities to spend time together and focusing on the other and the quality of your relationship when you share those opportunities.

Study the science

There is a technical aspect to everything, including relationships of any kind. Relationships should not be reduced to clinical experiences, however there are many things that can enhance any relationship. For example, understanding individual personality types or preferred communications styles or group dynamics, can all translate into the ability to be gracious and considerate or provide support or leadership as required. The quality of graciousness is no accident.

Do intervals

Regular, in person contact is essential to both establishing and maintaining relationships. They will be deepened however by spending some focused time together on a regular but less frequent basis. Just the two of you, just your family, or just your group of friends on a getaway together.

The key here is focus and intensity, so spend the time together doing something that makes each of you stretch. That is what will bring the new and lasting dimensions to your relationships.

Maintain discomfort

Due to the inevitable fact of attrition over time of almost all meaningful relationships, it is necessary to regularly be creating new ones. The word “new” should be your clue that some form of discomfort is a necessary aspect of this. It may be the discomfort of trying some new things, of going out when you don’t really feel like it, inviting people into your home, of balancing multiple relationships or of risking rejection.

Some types of people will feel these discomforts more than others however choosing to avoid this discomfort will lead to a gradual decline in social wellness.

Have a plan

As with the other wellness dimensions, being clear about your goals is no less important in regards to relationships whether they concern friends, your partner, your family or your community. If you want to create new relationships, or nurture or improve existing ones, you will need to be clear about your goals and your plans.

Modify rather than try to eliminate habits

If you like to go for long walks by yourself, keep doing that, but also start inviting someone new sometimes or join groups or others who also like to walk. If the recreation group you belong to is not providing you with social benefits, join one that does. If you are not finding kindred spirits at work, volunteer to work at an organization you feel some resonance with.

Cross train

Variations: Engage in a variety of social activities – indoor, outdoor, small and large groups, at venues or in homes. Each time you do you will strengthen your emotional ability to feel comfortable and confident in any social situation. Your social “fitness level” will increase.

Alternatives: Go out to dinner with some friends - then host a pot-luck. Go to a play with some friends - then host a murder mystery party. Go with a group to watch a sports event - then host your own horse-shoes tournament on a beach.

Options: Go out to dinner with one other person - then with five. Go on a day trip with a group - then an overnight trip. Do something with just singles, just couples or just guys.

90% pure

Sometimes you just won’t feel up to your plans and good intentions. If you don’t cut yourself some slack you will think of this as failure instead of focusing on your accomplishments. The process of adapting to a more healthy social life requires time to assimilate and rest and develop new “social muscle”. This is especially true of introvert types who need time alone after social interaction. As long as you focus on your averages and trends you will know the difference between backsliding and balance.

The Basics Rule

In any wellness program, you have to maintain the basics. The “basics” rule for social wellness is to maintain a regular, varied social life. Applying the basics rule, ask yourself if you:

1. Participated in at least one social activity this week.

2. Did something social this month which you rarely did in the past.

3. Extended an invitation to someone this month.

The following are three critical indicators social wellness:

1. You are connecting with the same person or group on a weekly basis.

2. You can pick up the phone and call any one of at least four friends any time for any reason.

3. You made one new close, personal friend this year.

Recommended Resources

The Likeability Factor by Tim Sanders

Tim has done extensive research into the physical, mental and other benefits of social connectivity. His particular focus is on what makes people like each other. It is very much a “how to” book and therefore an excellent resource towards making the most of the social opportunities you encounter.

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

This is the most accessible book on the new science of Positive Psychology. As with The Likeability Factor, this book is very useful in helping you learn to be the kind of person others would want to be friends with.

Love & Survival : The Scientific Basis For The Healing Power Of Intimacy by Dr. Dean Ornish

Comprehensive overview from the perspective of every medical specialization, both physical and mental, into the effects of loneliness on health.

The Introvert Advantage: How To Thrive In An Extrovert World

by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D.

Excellent easy read overview of introvert traits and how to work with your nature in regards to improving your social wellness.

Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey

You will encounter different types of people in your new social circle and this book will help you relate to and understand them and yourself.

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam, Ph. D.

The definitive academic study (although very easy reading) on the sorry state and trends of social wellness in America today.

Vital Friends by Tom Rath

Tom is the head of the Gallup Organization's Workplace Research and Leadership Consulting branch. Tom provides predictably quantitative evidence of the importance of friendship in general but specifically regarding its benefits in the workplace. If you are a manager, particularly a manager with HR responsibilities, I highly recommend this book.

There are certainly other books that could be included here but they are mostly not written in the popular style and are meant for specialized audiences. “A Cry Unheard: The Medical Consequences Of Loneliness” by Dr. James Lynch and "Social Isolation In Modern Society" by Roelof Hortulanus et al., are two examples of excellent books on the subject but which are really written for doctors, professors or academic researchers.

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