What is Social Health and How Does it Impact Longevity?
Last year, the U.S. Surgeon General published an advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. This advisory was based on decades of research on the impact of social connection on mental and physical health and brought nationwide awareness to the importance of creating and maintaining relationships for a long, healthy life.
“Most of us recognize that exercise and healthy eating are important for our longevity; however, if you’re doing those things by yourself, you’re missing out on the benefits of another pillar of health—social health,” says Steven Crane, MS, research scholar and head of Social Engagement pillar of Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. “Strong relationships are the bedrock of our well-being, and they are just as important for our health as going to the gym or eating healthy food.”
Social health refers to the quality of our relationships and how often we interact with others. Since social connection is in our nature as humans, when we are isolated and feel a lack of connection, research shows that our mental health can be affected. For example, we can experience a myriad of negative emotional states such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, or anger when the quality of our social health is poor, sometimes leading to substance abuse and addiction.
Mental health and well-being are not the only aspects affected. Research also shows that our social health profoundly impacts our physical health.
The Impact of Loneliness on Physical Health
Loneliness and social isolation have a significant impact on health and mortality. For example, research shows loneliness increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent, dementia by 50 percent, depression by 77 percent, premature mortality by 29 percent, and diabetes by 49 percent.
Crane explains that social health impacts our physical health in two ways. First, loneliness itself is a stressor. Since early humans evolved to be interdependent and rely on each other, they often did not survive when they were isolated. Therefore, when we feel as though we don’t belong, it can feel like a threat to our survival.
“Due to our evolution, humans have a drive to connect and seek out relationships. So, just like other drives linked to survival, such as hunger or thirst, loneliness signals that something is wrong, and we need to change our behavior to address it as soon as possible,” says Crane. “And just like these other survival-based stressors, when loneliness becomes chronic, cortisol levels stay elevated and thus increase the risk of heart disease, hyperglycemia, metabolic disorders, and other illnesses that are consequences of any chronically elevated stress situation.”
Secondly, there are a lot of stressors in our daily lives, and Crane says we can better handle them when we have the support of close, caring relationships. During challenging times, a few close friends can listen while we talk through our problems and offer guidance around possible solutions.
Social Health Obstacles and How to Overcome Them
Various factors prevent us from prioritizing our social health. From being overly busy with work and family obligations to being an introvert with a fear of rejection, there are many reasons why we don’t pick up the phone and reach out.
Here are three obstacles to social connection:
1) Fear of social situations
When people experience recurring feelings of exclusion and loneliness, they perceive social threats more severely than people who don’t feel as lonely.
“There’s a vicious cycle that happens when people feel lonely. People become more afraid of social situations and then become more likely to avoid them, which makes them lonelier,” says Crane. “This downward spiral can lead to chronic loneliness and isolation.”
To overcome the fear of social situations, Crane recommends exploring cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to work on social cognitions. This work can help people overcome fear of rejection or anticipatory anxiety about social events. “One of the most effective treatments for chronic loneliness is CBT because it can help re-write the scripts we tell ourselves that keep us from engaging in relationships,” says Crane.
2) Busyness
Amidst our busy schedules, many people let their friendships languish and aren’t proactive about keeping them strong. Even if they want to, it may seem too difficult when other items on the to-do list, such as family or work obligations, take higher priority.
“In the U.S., people work more than most other countries where social health is better. With more widespread adoption of remote or hybrid workplaces, it’s been harder to create meaningful relationships at work.” says Crane. “I’m currently working with a nonprofit called Sunny to help make workplaces more of a socially connected environment where we can fulfill our social health right there in the workplace—where we spend thousands of hours each year.”
Crane says the best way to overcome this obstacle of busyness is to make social connection an equal priority to our other healthy behaviors, such as getting good sleep, exercising, and eating nutritious meals. He recommends we build healthy habits to connect, like routine monthly gatherings with your local friends, weekly calls with your important relatives, and a daily text to somebody you appreciate.
3) Technology
We have never had so much digital entertainment so easily at hand as we do today. Videos, games, and infinite social media feeds are so compelling in the moment that most of us spend far more time on our devices than we want to. Indeed, the sophisticated algorithms that drive what appears next are optimized for prolonged engagement. To help with this, Crane and collaborators at the Stanford Behavior Design Lab developed Screentime Genie.
Without boundaries and strategies to manage our device use, we often retreat to digital entertainment to bypass the activation energy of social engagement or the friction and difficulty that real-life relationships inevitably entail. Crane is concerned that many young people are not learning the skill of navigating conflict, which is essential to strengthening relationships.
“The moment there is discomfort in a social situation, like breaking the ice with new people at a party, many young people escape into their phones instead. But difficulty is part of all human relationships, so we shouldn’t be afraid of engaging with it, and it’s important to be able to work through our differences in order to feel more connected,” says Crane. “A TikTok feed is never going to challenge you, but it also won’t give you the rewards of a fulfilling, authentic relationship.”
