The 6 Pillars Of Wellbeing: Social Connections

To celebrate our recent partnership with Betterspace, we are going to be sharing ways in which you can improve your mental health and wellbeing using some of the tools and resources available through their platform. Betterspace give you personalised recommendations based on 6 pillars – Sleep, Stress Management, Social Connections, Exercise, Helping Others or Meaningful Activity, and Nutrition. Each week we’ll dive into one of the pillars, exploring why it’s important alongside some ideas for what you can do to ensure you are managing it as well as you can. This week we’ll be investigating the ways that you can enrich your life through the power of social connections.

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The Social Dilemma

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We live in an age that is more connected than ever before. With just 6 degrees of separation between us, it has never been easier to get to know your neighbours, before you’ve even met them in person. However social isolation is both objective and perceived - meaning that there is a difference between being alone, and feeling lonely. It is possible to feel lonely in a crowd.

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While many of us are increasingly physically and virtually connected, some sources report that feelings of isolation and disconnection are on the rise, which is having profound effects on mental health. Surveys suggest that over one third of Americans over the age of 45 are lonely at least some of the time, with levels increasing rapidly for those over 70 - when objective social isolation is also at its highest.

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It is claimed that the impacts of social isolation can increase morbidity and mortality at scales greater than traditional health risk factors such as alcohol, physical activity and obesity, with corresponding mental health issues such as depression. At the same time, the exact mechanisms behind how mental illness such as anxiety, depression, PTSD and borderline disorder contributes to, is exacerbated by or is otherwise linked to social isolation remains elusive. And therapeutic interventions which leverage social connection to enhance compliance with efficacy or mental health treatment, though promising, remain scarce.

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Luckily, as more funding pours into the relevant research, we are able to improve our efforts to understand emotion regulation throughout the lifespan and its impact on mental health and disease. Allowing us to identify potential intervention targets for modifying social connectedness, isolation, and loneliness via social media or electronic communication, to prevent the development of clinically significant health symptoms.

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Alone Or Lonely

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Being ‘lonely’ is an emotional state where you feel alone or disconnected from others - even if they are physically present. Therefore being alone is a state of being, whereas being lonely is a feeling. A recent study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology sheds some light what makes a person feel lonely - “The perceived quality, not the quantity, of interpersonal connections was associated with poor mental health.”

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The solution therefore lies in how well a person is able to connect on a deep emotional level with others in an intimate and vulnerable way. Things that might prevent someone from being able to do this include a history of trauma, which impact both a sense of safety and the perception of relationships, as well as feelings of trust and self-worth. Poor parental attachment affects how we connect and form bonds with others, as well as enforcing repeated negative relationship patterns and a fear of intimacy.

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We also live in a society that values toughness, stoicism, and fierce independence. We all are taught lessons from an early age that it is not acceptable to be “weak.” Our feelings become dangerous and shameful parts of our being. We spend time with friends and loved ones, yet everyone is wearing masks of superficiality. Deeper discussion, intimate connection, and authenticity are often avoided at all costs, for fear of being uncomfortable, ‘low energy’ or awkward.

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We hear a lot about technology and social media as major factors in the current loneliness epidemic. Research, however, is mixed on this. On the one hand, people are more immersed in games, phones, pictures that are cloaked in rose-colored lenses, and capturing the perfect selfie. At the same time, technology also allows for more ways to stay connected with family and friends and can actually decrease feelings of loneliness.

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It seems that technology may predominantly be useful for older adults. Yet, younger adults (18-22) fair best when they stay off their phones and computers, perhaps as their brains are still developing to a greater degree. This makes sense if one considers that some of the problems with technology are symptoms of a greater issue, rather than the cause.

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The prevailing culture in society has become hyper-polarised and increasingly individualistic. People have become less empathetic, and more concerned about self. There has been a shift towards  the more controlled, regimented, and standardised, over being open to things that are more adventurous, creative and tolerant of ambiguity. A healthy sense of self-worth now becomes wrapped up in grades, perfectionism, and success.

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This phenomenon might be particularly true in environments where many relationships are built on what someone can do for you, rather than how much you just genuinely enjoy being around and feeling close to someone. We live in a society that values things and “success” over relationships. Relationships then become commodities to be acquired in much the same way as a new car or the latest gadget. As such, one is never fulfilled and never gets their deeper needs met.

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We also increasingly seek out expert opinion. While this leads to a healthy ability to question everything, it can also lead to a certain amount of conflict between what feels right for you, society’s expectations and what the available data says to be “correct”. Emotional connection requires being touch with your emotions. And, being able to trust those emotions without anyone else telling you what you should or should not do.

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We are a social species. The ability to connect is inherent in all of us, even if it might look very different for any given individual, as we all define community differently. We can learn to slowly let down our barriers, to trust others, to accept the parts of ourselves that we’ve grown to hate, to value ourselves and others regardless of what people might think, to dare to be “weak,” and to listen to our own body and instincts.

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Better Buddies

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Explaining Humans by Dr Camilla Pang is a Betterspace recommendation for progressively exploring and understanding our inner and outer landscapes. At the age of eight, author Camilla was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and ADHD at 26 years old. Her career and studies have been heavily influenced by her diagnosis but she is driven by her passion for understanding humans, our behaviours and how we work.

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Armed with a PhD in biochemistry, Camilla dismantles our obscure social customs and identifies what it really means to be human using her unique expertise and a language she knows best - science. Through a set of scientific principles, this book examines life's everyday interactions including: decisions and the route we take to make them; conflict and how we can avoid it; relationships and how we establish them; etiquette and how we conform to it.

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In her words, Pang hopes to be “a voice for the neurodivergent community in shining a light on the fact that it’s OK to feel outlandish in a system that you’re basically allergic to, because you’re designed to make a new one”. What’s great about the book is its stark reminder that it’s ok to step outside of the prevailing expectations and pressures of society, and that there is not necessarily anything wrong with you for needing to do so.

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As well as fostering good relationships with other humans, connection is also established through our relationship to nature and the wider world. A love for the company of other sentient beings can be found via apps such as Borrow My Dog - a marketplace platform connecting dog owners to locals seeking to ‘puppy sit’ for the afternoon.

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It’s a reminder that in order to authentically connect to others, we must first learn to tune into ourselves. The Betterspace recommendations are therefore progressive in their acknowledgement of personalised solutions that cater to individual ambiguity and nuance, as opposed to the tick box exercises offered by so many other platforms.

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Betterspace is a science-based wellbeing platform, which curates a personalised set of wellbeing recommendations including apps, services, and activities. It helps employers understand the state of wellbeing within their company, and employees stay in control of their mental health

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x+why give every member free access to Betterspace. Find out how you can join today.

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