The importance of strong social connections on our mental health – my personal realization

It has been more than a year since my last business trip, close to one year in home office.

I am a single woman who used to travel every week – ever since I started my current role, I have been on the road for two to four days a week, visiting our offices in Eastern Europe, meeting with my team members, colleagues, customers and engaging with HR peers from other companies. When at home, I was happy for quiet weekends and excited for the new week in a different cool spot.

From one day to another, this came to a halt – I kept meeting my team, colleagues in Eastern Europe, customers and HR peers, yet virtually. All of a sudden, I was at home day in and day out, working out from home, no airports, no taxis, no 4:30 a.m. wake up calls to make it for my flight. To my own surprise, I have been enjoying this a lot!

My sleeping rhythm improved, I felt great, started to take walks through the fields close to my home, worked out more than ever, ate well. I certainly missed the personal touch and the impressions that my business trips left on me, the quality time with colleagues over lunches or dinner, the causal talks in the hallways.

I certainly had more meetings than before, my workload seemed to increase but we all learnt how to deal with the new situation over the past months. I cannot compare to many colleagues and most of my friends who had to become teachers, caretakers, cooks and much more in order to keep their family life in order and to ensure their kids stayed on top of their tasks.

My biggest challenge was to be fine with being by myself all the time without the adrenaline that came from new places, new people and new tasks. I was at home, alone for breakfast, lunch and most of the times for dinner, always in the same three rooms, lots of time to reflect and think.

I am very grateful to look back at the last year and be able to say that I am fine with being by myself, I am able to enjoy the silence of a Sunday afternoon and find pleasure in preparing & enjoying my favorite breakfast by myself. This pandemic has put me to the test after years of working with my coach on accepting me for who I am and not constantly striving for what I don’t have or who I am not. What an important realization this has been for me, I am truly grateful!

The pandemic has taught me another big lesson and since I discussed about this topic so much in the last weeks, I wanted to reflect on it a bit more.

I would have never made it through this pandemic in such a positive way without my friends and family members whom I share a strong bond with. While I live by myself, I was in close contact with the people near to me, whenever possible, we met for walks, take-out or home-made meals or just to talk. We grew closer, spoke more often, enjoyed the precious time together even more.

After Christmas, my mood suddenly changed, I was grumpy, hardly had any energy inside me, started to be annoyed by things easily – simply not my open, positive and energetic me. I started to question my job, my life, simply could not appreciate what I had and felt somewhat empty. I blamed it on the lock down situation, not knowing how long this will take and starting to miss traveling really badly. I worked more than usual, as the first months in a year are the busiest in my role. It seemed that all I did was sleep, eat, work, workout, work a bit more, eat and sleep. I felt exhausted and had no energy left.

Until one Monday, when I called a friend and she suggested we spontaneously meet for a walk in the afternoon as we hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. We only had three hours until we had to be back home, we walked, we talked, we laughed, we cried. We grabbed something to eat and talked a bit more. No phones, no inbox, no calls, just us, nature and our honest thoughts. I drove home afterwards and felt amazing, these three hours felt like a short vacation. I woke up the next day full of energy, positive and motivated for work.

One week later, I engaged in a discussion with former NHL star Brooks Laich about the positive effects of strong social connections on our mental health based on his findings from the book “Together” by Dr. Vivek H. Murthy. The group talked about the increased risk of depression when being lonely and not being able to rely on a social network as opposed to the exponential positive effects of strong social connections on your mental health and overall well-being, even when living by yourself and being alone most of the time.

It dawned on me that I had first hand experienced these positive effects when after a few weeks of not engaging much with friends and family due to a lot of work and not getting out of the house, reaching out to one of my closest friends and carving out a few hours of quality time recharged my body, my soul and my brain with so much positive energy that I could jump for joy.

I realized that I made it through this year in such a positive and optimistic way because I am blessed with wonderful friends and close family members that kept my spirits high and gave me the strength I needed.

Mental health is extremely important in the situation we are in right now – no matter if you are single or in a relationship, a mom or a dad. The pandemic will not go away so soon, we need to cope with a new way of living our lives on the long run and yes, we need to make it work, we need to function!

Please do not underestimate the importance of social connections, it does not only take close friends or family, it could also be a colleague who work with or just a person you interact with regularly. If you feel that someone in your circle is struggling, reach out and offer them to talk or go for a walk. It may bring back their smile and help them overcome the challenge they are facing – might even encourage them to change something for the better.

Nobody needs to feel lonely if they have strong social relationships – it is not the number of connections that does the trick, but the quality of those.

Stay safe and positive – and reach out to a someone you have not talked to in a while but may. It will make both of you smile, I promise!