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10 Reasons Why Being Social is Good for Your Mental Health

Dr.Amrita Basu(MBBS,MS)

 How social are you?

Next time hubby scolds you about kitty parties, you can guide him to this post.

There’s science backed facts to encourage positive social bonds.

With lives getting busier,families smaller a nurturing social life is even more a priority.

 Social relationships are important.

 

#TRUTH 1

Quantity and quality of your company will affect:

 Not convinced?

 Did you know  captors use social isolation to torture prisoners of war?

#TRUTH 2

Social isolation of healthy, well-functioning people can cause  psychological & physical  breakdown.

Even death!

 

#TRUTH 3

Adults who are socially connected are healthier and live longer .

That’s why  parents ,relatives and grand parents need us even more  when they grow older.

Socially useful relationships make life meaningful . 

Image courtesy Aniruddha Das

Majority of research findings show :

 

(1) Social relationships have significant effects on health

(2) Social relationships affect health through behavioral, psychosocial, and physiological pathways.

(3) Relationships benefit health

(4) Relationships shape your  health .

 #TRUTH 4

 Humans crave social integration.The quality of the relationship  is also important .

 It’s important that relationships give positive  emotional support.

Poor quality social ties affect  health.

It can   impair immune      functions,poor health and Mortality.

 (Kiecolt-Glaser et al. 2002; Robles and Kiecolt-Glaser 2003).

Marriage is  the most studied social tie.

#TRUTH 5

Marital relationship, affects  cardiovascular disease, chronic conditions.

 Berkman and Syme (1979)showed that the risk of death among men and women with the fewest social ties was more than twice as high as the risk for adults with the most social ties.

#TRUTH 6

Social ties decrease mortality risk among adults with documented medical conditions. Brummett and colleagues (2001) found that, among adults with coronary artery disease, the socially isolated had a risk of subsequent cardiac death 2.4 times greater than their more socially connected peers.

Conditions associated with poor social health:

#TRUTH 7

 Marriage is perhaps the most studied social tie. Recent work shows that marital history over the life course shapes a range of health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, chronic conditions, mobility limitations, self-rated health, and depressive symptoms (Hughes and Waite 2009;Zhang and Hayward 2006).

How relationships affect health?

 #TRUTH 8

Three ways that social ties work to influence health:

 

Image courtesy Aniruddha  Das

 What are positive Health  Behaviors?

What are negative  health behaviours

We live with our spouses after being pampered by our parents.So spousal support and understanding goes a long way in giving you positive health.

#TRUTH 9

For children the home environment is their first chance of understanding social integration.

Children learn to be social from their environment

Unhappy marriage and parenthood have  been associated with poor health behaviors .

Physical inactivity and weight gain are two negative effects of poor marital quality .

What is important is  positive effect  of any relationship.

If the effect of these ties are not positive. Then mental health is affected.

Mind and body are two sides of the same coin. They work together and act together. When your mind dreams your body does.

Both are actions.Just in their own way.

So positive health benefits from a relationship needs affects , mind and body . 

 What exactly does  a poor marriage cause?

 Compromised immune and endocrine function.

 Depression (Kiecolt-Glaser and Newton 2001).

Sociological research shows that marital strain erodes physical health, and that the negative effect of marital strain on health becomes greater with advancing age (Umberson et al. 2006). 

Nagasawa and colleagues (1990) found that negative social environments and their perceived barriers predicted poor compliance to medical regimens among diabetes patients.

What’s happening  at office and school can also interfere with health.

Takeaway

Social relationships are important  for physical , mental and psychological health  .

Quality and Quantity of relationships are both important .

Peer pressure,religious clans are examples of potentially negative social effects.

So any social company needs to be evaluated with respect to the positive effect they have.

[bctt tweet=””It’s better to be alone than in bad company “” username=”misra_amrita”]

 #TRUTH 10

For Bloggers and Solopreneurs :

This post is especially important for bloggers and solopreneurs.If you are doing anything alone , it’s a strain on your mental health.

“Joy shared is doubled  and burden shared is halved”

Join communities like Blogchatter and see how blogging becomes a social movement with tea parties thrown in.

In this busy world if your offline friends don’t get your spirit , find your friends online.

I did .For #Microblog Mondays is easily the most fun twitter chat ever.

You find friends ,learn ,grow and just get support for your dreams.

Sometimes it just takes one more person to believe.  

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150158/#!po=95.6667

 

Social Relationships and Health: A Flashpoint for Health Policy

 

Debra Umberson and Jennifer Karas Montez

 

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