The Need for Human Connection

I’ve been thinking recently about the last few years, especially 2020 and 2021. I’m grateful that I could not have foreseen a year where our office would be closed to in-person clients and we would be seeing our clients by video or phone. I didn’t see my therapists in person for months. Yet we carried on, business as usual. We saw our clients, conducted team meetings weekly and met with our study group – all through Zoom.  It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it worked. 

This was also the time when we isolated; everyone was working from home. The office manager and I were the only ones in the office, because we were still running a business and some of our work couldn’t be done from home. And then in February 2021, after the vaccine arrived, the world appeared to be coming out and we made the decision to see clients, in person, with all the necessary restrictions.

At this point, I can’t remember who my first in-person client was. But I remember vividly the intense emotion I had when this person walked in and sat across from me. It was bizarre. I felt that I previously hadn’t been able to breathe and now I could take a deep breath. I had never experienced anything like this before. It felt unbelievably freeing. I knew that this had everything to do with having a real person in the office – not on FaceTime or Zoom. There was a palpable energy that I was experiencing that didn’t present itself with technology.

This feeling has continued, but more in the form of noticing that if I am experiencing a negative feeling, for example if I am tired, or a little down or a little anxious, these feelings dissipate when I am involved with a client discussing their issues or have a meaningful conversation with a friend or relative. I can freely breathe. The only explanation I can give is, being face to face, there is a human connection between myself and the other person.

Humans are social beings. Our brains are influenced by social experiences. We know that how we handle stress in early life strongly influences how we handle it and interact with others in later years. We know from studies that chronic, significant stressors can decrease the connections in our brains that involve memory and higher order information processing, such as in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Research has also shown having social connections and interacting with others can affect changes in the brain, such as improving memory and recall, while protecting the brain from neurodegenerative disease.

Maintaining close friendships later in life could help in preventing mental decline. Studies have found that “Super-Agers,” defined as people aged 80 and above, who had close friends, had the mental agility of much younger people. “Super-Agers” endorsed greater levels of positive social relationships than their cognitively average-age peers. Another study on “Super-Agers” found that they were constantly surrounded by family, neighbors and the community who actively supported each other.

Besides our intellectual well-being, social contact can affect our health. Having a variety of social relationships may help reduce stress and heart risks. These connections may improve our ability to fight off germs or give us a positive outlook for health. Those in long-term relationships tend to live longer and have better heart health than those not married. When a relationship is full of conflict, health benefits may shrink. In one study, it said that how couples behave during conflict can affect wound healing and blood levels of stress hormones. 

In a study at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, they found that the more diverse people’s social networks, meaning the more types of connections they had, the less likely they were to develop a cold after exposure to the cold virus. They found evidence that people with more types of connections also tend to have better health behaviors, not smoking or drinking, and more positive emotions.

Along with social support, it’s been found that when we communicate with people face-to-face it reduces stress factors. It releases oxytocin, which increases our level of trust and lowers our cortisol levels, thus lowering our stress. As another result of social interaction, dopamine is generated, which diminishes pain, serving as a natural morphine.  Another study found that people with cancer who had social support fared better when receiving cancer treatments. One study cited hugging specifically as a form of touch that can strengthen the immune system.

Most of us are aware that emotional intimacy is integral to human connection. To create that bond of intimacy with another, we need to: 

–         Accept the other person for who they are and not for what we need them to be

–         Relate to each other on an emotional level

–         Enhance the welfare of the other

–         Give emotional support during difficult times

–         Recognize and communicate the unique value of the other person

–         Be able to share our real selves.

Being intimate with another is an emotional exchange, not an intellectual one. It is the sharing of the true self. Intimacy is the ultimate vehicle for finding human connection. The benefits are great – whether they be physical, intellectual, or emotional.

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