Relationships might be the most critical skill to master to gain happiness. When things get complicated, think about what keeps you going. When you reflect on your life, think about what will be most important. The majority of us can respond. It’s not money, status, or work. It’s our love and connection with coworkers, friends, and family.
Positive psychology researchers now contend that relationships and well-being work together to form a kind of upward spiral. Healthy relationships sow the seeds of happiness. They help you live longer, improve stress resistance, and strengthen your immune system. However, the reverse is also true: Our relationships get stronger when we are happy. People make better friends, coworkers, lovers, and life partners when they are in good health, comfortable, and content.
Even though most people already have meaningful relationships, the relationships practice below offers you a fresh perspective on how to invest in them. Unfortunately, when it comes to our health, many of us make poor decisions. We often believe happiness results from financial, social, or professional success. However, these pursuits can frequently have the opposite effect, depriving us of our most precious connections.
This practice provides an evidence-based argument that investing in relationships improves well-being. In addition, concentrating on relationships presents an opportunity to practice and integrate several resilience skills, including:
Gratitude:
- Use this as a cue to shift your focus to appreciation the next time you spend time with someone important to you.
- Describe your favorite thing about this person.
- Consider how fortunate you are to have such a wonderful person in your life.
Compassion:
- Use this as a cue to switch to understanding the next time you are with extended family.
- Focus on empathy and love rather than their peculiarities or irritating characteristics.
- Consider what living a day in their shoes would be like. Be open, kind, and gentle.
The Presence:
Spending quality time means being present. Concentrate solely on the person you are with and maximize the opportunity to demonstrate your presence.
The Weekly connection is a short and specific ritual incorporated into the practice. It could be a night out on the town with your significant other, a stroll with a friend, or a trip to an amusement park with your kid. It’s a once-a-week chance to focus on the people you care about instead of the many modern distractions.
The Need for Social Connections
Over the past three decades, a growing body of neuroscience research has demonstrated that human interaction—or a lack of it—causes significant changes in brain function, both for the better and the worse.
Incidentally, social detachment hinders leader working, the limit of the cerebrum to control contemplations and driving forces. We become more impulsive, more anxious, and less emotionally resilient when our relationships are unhealthy. The physical world is also affected by these emotional repercussions.
Leading neuroscientist John Cacioppo, who studies loneliness and relationships, says loneliness causes impulsive behaviors that are pleasurable but harmful to our physical health. Drinking excessively, using drugs, eating sugary and fatty foods, and not exercising
Check to see if this holds for you. For example, how does your behavior change when you experience feelings of loneliness or a lack of connection? Do you get enough sleep? Do you consume different foods?
Loneliness and Declined Well-Being
Roy Baumeister’s experiment illustrates how these circumstances alter our behavior. A group of volunteer participants interacted with Baumeister and his research team. Finding a group of people they respected and trusted was their mission. However, rather than immediately forming groups, participants provided researchers with the names of the two people they most desired to collaborate with following the event.
Baumeister’s team then called back the participants for a follow-up meeting. The researchers portrayed half of the people who attended this session as outcasts. They did not choose them. Instead, they were informed, “You can just go ahead and complete the next part of the task alone.” “That’s fine,” they told them. Researchers portrayed the other half as the group’s favorites. Everyone in the room wanted to work with them, but it took a lot of work to put them in small groups so that they would complete the task on their own.
The researchers then brought 35 chocolate chip cookies into the room, where every participant was informed that they would participate in a “taste test.” They were told to consume as many cookies as needed to evaluate their flavor accurately.
What took place next? On average, the “favorites” of the group—those who felt loved and accepted—ate four or five cookies. On the other hand, cookies were consumed twice as much by the “outcasts,” or those who experienced rejection’s sting, illustrating how unhealthy behaviors can result from feeling alone, rejected, or isolated.
The issue is not so much that being alone makes you unhealthy as it is. The reason for this is that the feelings we experience when we are alone can make it harder for us to concentrate, which causes a series of adverse biological effects. The findings of Cacioppo’s research indicate a direct biological link between feeling alone and having a bad mood. Cacioppo’s team has also found that feeling alone is linked to higher stress hormone levels, compromising executive functioning. They concluded that an increase in cortisol levels the following morning directly correlates with loneliness the day before. Loneliness has many other adverse effects on the mind and body by increasing stress: decreased immunity, mortality rates, and inflammation.
Therefore, the evidence demonstrates that relationships are crucial in cultivating well-being for those interested in leading happier lives. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that happiness and relationships are inextricably linked. “This means that romantic partners and friends make people happy, but it also means that happy people are more likely to acquire lovers and friends,” says positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky.
How to Build Strong Relationships
This method is direct yet thoughtful. We call this method The Weekly Connection. Spend quality time each week to build or strengthen relationships.
There are a variety of ways. For example, you could organize regular date nights with your partner. Consider arranging a playdate with your child regularly. Alternatively, arrange a walk with a close friend. Or join a group of community members who share your interests.
The good thing about this practice is that we give you a reason to have fun and connect with others.
Naturally, you might wonder why you should try to connect with your loved ones. The reason is that we frequently place “productive activities” ahead of these opportunities for connection. For example, instead of playing 20 minutes of Legos with our child, we spend an additional hour on email. Instead of engaging in meaningful conversation with a loved one, we deal with our finances.
These “productive activities” are crucial and frequently necessitated. However, The Weekly Connection occasionally gives you a break from this routine. It grants permission to turn off the phone, laptop, or television and cultivate one of the essential lifestyle habits for happiness: establishing a connection with your loved ones.
The “Weekly Connection Practice” can be hard to fit relationship practice into each week because life is busy. Some suggestions:
Please put it in your schedule.
Plan some weekly opportunities for connection at the beginning of each month. Make plans to spend time with the people who matter most to you or to meet someone new. Make a few fun outings, arrange a meal together, and contact the people you want to spend time with so that they can do the same.
Make it a habit.
Make it simple for everyone to make a recurring connection whenever you can. For example, family game night on Friday walks with a friend or neighbor on Wednesday, date nights on Saturday, and video chats on Sunday with parents or grown children.
Avoid using the device.
This adaptation may be complex at first, but what if, during your weekly connection, you turned off your phone or put it in “do not disturb” mode?
Begin small.
Quality builds strong connections, not quantity. So go for it, even if you only have 10 or 15 minutes with that person. Those minutes will be more potent than an hour of superficial or distracted time if you are entirely present.
Enjoy the moment.
Please take a moment to appreciate how important it is to spend quality time with the people you care about the most.
