Social Wellness

Social wellness is having a support system and sense of belonging within a community. The absence of social engagement can affect your health including how you feel and behave. Whether you consider yourself an introvert, omnivert, ambivert or extrovert, social contact is necessary and needed in our lives.

Social Wellness encompasses…

Social wellness stems from what happens when we get a boost of oxytocin, aka the “happy hormone.” This happens when we get a hug from a friend of loved one, engage in sex, go out with friends, or find connectedness with our friends and family. This hormone can boost your feelings of contentment, feeling loved, trust in or from someone and feeling secure. We get all that from our social interactions. 

Social wellness doesn’t always have to mean physical contact (even though that's often needed too), but also includes contact and interaction and conversation. And it turns out it doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself an introvert or extrovert, social contact is necessary. According to a study conducted by AARP, those that considered themselves “Highly Connected” or “People People” rated their brain health and overall health higher because of their social interactions with others.

When you don’t take care of your social wellness…

It can affect how you feel, how you work, how you eat and how you sleep. That’s because when we isolate or are not engaged with others or others are not engaged with us we’re missing those interactions that give us that boost of oxytocin we all need. And that can affect our sense of self. People need people and there’s no denying that fact.

We've learned from the COVID pandemic how isolation has been affecting people. Children may be having angry outbursts or grades are declining in their school work. They missed their friends and the effects of laughing, smiling, eating and being with their friends, the impact of which is still unknown. Family members missed being with their families, tired of looking through a screen or hearing their voices on the phone.

You can do this. PsycleOn can help.

Our social wellness is just as important to maintain as our other wellness pillars, because we all need that “happy hormone” in our lives. That’s why you need a plan.

I mentioned before that this pandemic has been socially challenging and hard for us all, but there are ways to get that ‘happy hormone'' fix even now. We just have to find creative ways to do it. Some suggestions are:

• create a paint night

• have a movie night with a short discussion afterwards

• have a book club meeting

• create a cooking club with some family and friends where you meet up via video and try out a new recipe together

• schedule tea over the phone with a close friend or family member once a week.

If this feels overwhelming or difficult to you, don’t worry! We’re here to help. We can help you design a strategy to make sure your social wellness becomes a natural, mutually beneficial element of your life.

Your wellness is too important to leave it to chance!