By Sakuni Weerasinghe
With a pandemic sweeping across multiple nations around the world and the main advice for its prevention being incorrectly abbreviated as “social distancing”, there’s not a better time to reflect on the value of human connection. Psychological, sociological, anthropological, and pretty much any text dealing with human behaviour would describe humans as social creatures. Beginning from birth, we strive to establish close relationships with others. It’s safe to say the need for social interaction is woven into our genetic makeup as we strive to establish strong social networks that increase our odds of survival. (Yes, this rings true even for the introverts.)
A social connection includes the feelings of belonging to a group and closeness. Belongingness represents a core psychological need. This is what drives us to seek out those with similar values as we do, build and sustain long-lasting relationships with others, and engage in social and communal activities. Our social identity is crucial to understanding who we are as individuals. As poetic as this may sound, there’s no “I” without an “us”. As such, social connection is the key to our wellbeing. Therefore, it is only right that the World Health Organisation (WHO) revised the term social distancing as “physical distancing” to ensure we don’t forget the value of social connection and the role it plays in our everyday lives even a few feet apart from each other.
Social connection is directly related to both mental and physical health benefits. It is linked to happiness, increased resilience, enhanced self-esteem and cognition, and being more empathic, trusting, and co-operative as individuals. It factors in on the effective management of stress and reduces the risk of developing mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. Healthy relationships even serve as a protective factor and decrease the risk of suicide. One study showed that a lack of social connection has been found to be a greater detriment to health than obesity, smoking, and even high blood pressure. Other studies have shown that those with strong social connections have a 50% increased chance of longevity. What more can you ask for?
Another finding that ought to be highlighted during these trying times is how social connectedness is linked to better immune functioning, helping you recover from disease and illness faster. Inflammation is the way our immune system heals wounds and fights off bacterial infections and is an adaptive response. Yet, chronic inflammation is linked to illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, and neurodegeneration.
What’s interesting is that feelings of social isolation and chronic loneliness can yield an inflammatory response as well, owing to our evolutionary design. To give you a clearer picture of what this means, adverse social experiences such as social isolation can be perceived as a “threat” which induces inflammation while suppressing antiviral immunity, whereas positive experiences of social connection may reduce inflammation and strengthen antiviral responses. The main takeaway is that while you may engage in physical distancing and remain in self-quarantine, you need to stay socially connected.
Essentially, being in self-quarantine, we have ample time to take a long hard look at the relationships we have built and identify how to strengthen and deepen our social connections. As we do, it is important to be mindful that empathy, understanding, genuineness, acceptance, shared values and beliefs, and communication of the same lay the groundwork for strong social connections. For the relationships you build and sustain to be authentic and healthy, you ought to be authentic yourself by being honest, having a sincere interest in others, and being transparent about your strengths as well as your flaws. While reflecting on your social connections, take time to evaluate whether you have been or can be truly authentic in your relationships and whether you have allocated adequate time and made an effort to sustain them.
At a time when feelings of sadness and fear overwhelm us and our behaviours are not often rational or justified (panic buying being a case in point), it is important to effectively step into the shoes of another and empathise with each other. This is one way to comfort and foster a deeper non-judgmental understanding and acceptance of each other. Consider it a warm embrace, albeit from the safety of our own homes.
Having reflected on the state of your social connections, it is important we find ways to remain socially connected at a time when physical distancing is crucial to our health and wellbeing. Here are a few such ways:
- Video calls: Distance doesn’t have to keep you apart. Make use of apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Zoom to video call your friends and family. Perhaps you could use this as an opportunity to finally teach your parents how to use the video call function. We can all attest to seeing them blankly stare at you and repeat “hello, can you hear me?” while being too close to the camera as they tried to figure out the “new tech gadgets”. Make it a point to especially connect with family and friends who are overseas away from home.
- A night to reminisce: Reminiscing past positive experiences and good memories induce positive emotions and promote wellbeing. So make it a point to laugh with your friends and family about all the adventures you’ve been on, the times you’ve somehow managed to run into glass doors, and accidentally said “I love you” to the pizza delivery guy.
- Get ammi to share her most prized recipes with you: Maybe you’ll finally learn how to make chicken curry the way achchi used to.
- Make a photo collage: Get your creative juices flowing during daytime by coming up with a photo collage.
- Watch a movie together: It takes skills to text back “3...2...1” and hit “play” to watch the movie at the exact same time, but ongoing commentary has never been more fun.
- Gardening: If you’re dreading running out of topics to talk about, you could engage in gardening as a family. It is a form of stress relief and a way to connect with your environment.
- Storytelling: How many of us love to hear all the back-in-the-day stories from our grandparents? When you do call them up to check on them, request them to regale with an exciting story that makes you nostalgic for a time you never experienced first-hand.
- Family game night: ‘Nuff said.