My Own Blue Zone - The TenniSphere

It’s abundantly clear from research, and the obvious fact that humans are social beings, how important it is to have regular social interactions. I recently read an article about how people should prioritize this as much as their physical health and nutrition.?

My Own Blue Zone

The biggest predictor of health and happiness in life isn’t something like cholesterol level or blood pressure. It was the strength of a person’s relationships. Social fitness, one of the study’s directors told The Harvard Gazette, is just like physical fitness. You need to work at it.?

“We think of physical fitness as a practice, as something we do to maintain our bodies. Our social life is a living system, and it needs maintenance too,” said study director Robert Waldinger.?

Kasley Killam is an author that has written about the importance of social relationships to our health and wellbeing. A good prescriptive rule of thumb she recommends is to apply the 5-3-1 method towards crafting an intentional social fitness plan. This breaks down our interactions into three distinct categories which are as follows.?

How do you know if you’re doing OK on the social fitness front? Killam told Business Insider that everyone should try to aim for a minimum of:?

• Spending time with five different people a week. This could be anyone from your gym buddy or book club bestie to the person the next pew over at your church.?
• Nurturing three close relationships. Here, Killam is talking about maintaining the tightest bonds in your life, usually with family and dear friends.?
• Aiming for one hour of social interaction a day. “That doesn’t have to be all at once. It could be 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there,” Killam clarifies to BI. And feel free to combine your hanging out time with errands or other activities if you’re busy.?

She suggests that the five people we spend time with should be outside of our normal circles such as work and family, or at least complement those with others so that we build up our social muscle and have diverse interactions.

The second category is going deep with three people and staying deep with them by continuing to nurture those relationships. These represent our tightest bonds and the people who will truly be there for us when we need them.

Finally, it’s also recommended that we target one hour per day of random social interactions by talking on the phone, chatting with people at the office, coffee shop, the mall, etc. I think the best way to convey this part of our social fitness regiment is to cite an excerpt of an interview done with Kurt Vonnegut. This perfectly captures the benefits of random social interactions.

“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “Okay, I’ll send you the pages.”

This is an area that I can definitely improve upon. When I’m in the mood I can turn on the charm and make humorous small talk when I’m out and about but the problem is that I’m not always in the mood. This is too bad because I always feel better after having done so. Thus, just like anything, we shouldn’t let our mood get in the way of taking those actions that are beneficial to us. This is especially the case because I’m a big believer that actions can change feelings whereas feelings can often get in the way of taking constructive action.

I’ve written about how I have made a very significant investment in building a tennis court as well as other amenities to create a tennis experience and opportunities to socialize. Heather and I have named what we have created The TenniSphere and it’s something we will be making more public through a website and Instagram page in the ensuing months to bring it more to life for people. The overriding intention was to make it a magnet for great tennis players as well as a very welcoming place that would be a center for health and wellness, akin to a private Blue Zone.?

In 2000 journalist Dan Buettner set out to study areas of the world with strikingly high longevity and identify what common characteristics they may have.

He coined the term Blue Zones to describe these areas. There are nine common attributes within four different categories. These categories are:

Activity

Outlook

Diet

Connections

Since the focus of this blog is on social connections, here is more detail about this category from the NIH.

Connections

• Loved Ones First Centenarians spend a lot of time and effort working on their relationships with their spouses and children. Children are likely to keep their aging parents nearby and to consider them to be fonts of wisdom that will favor their own survival.
• Belong People in Blue Zones tend to belong to a faith-based community. Individuals of faith who regularly attend a faith-based service live 4 to 14 years longer than their counterparts who do not, Buettner said.
• Right Tribe Health behaviors are contagious, Buettner said. Deleterious behaviors (e.g., obesity, smoking, excessive drinking, loneliness, unhappiness) are also contagious. The world’s longest-lived people “curate” social circles around themselves that support healthy behaviors.

The TenniSphere – Our Blue Zone

One can see how curating a social circle is quite important along with being close to one’s family and feeling part of and connected to a larger community. Tying this back to The TenniSphere, my hope is that it embodies all key aspects of a Blue Zone. There is physical activity through tennis, an environment that fosters a positive attitude given how most avid tennis players are disciplined, healthy, and have a positive outlook on life aided by tennis being so central to their lives. From a diet perspective we can influence that by focusing on serving healthy food for ourselves and others. And, finally, connections are ample through the numerous tennis players that come to engage in the sport and the socializing that takes place before, during, and after the matches. There’s also the opportunity to nurture the most important relationships in my life, which are with Heather and my kids, by spending more time together at the house. It’s far more difficult to do this with my daughter as she lives far away. Nevertheless, exercising our social muscles should make it easier to continue to invest in the nurturing of one’s most important relationships even if they are far away.

The way I have been achieving the first goal of connecting with five different people each week is through live ball sessions that we have been hosting for the past few weeks. These typically involve 8 to 10 people, both men and women. I’m definitely one of the oldest participants so it’s nice to interact with energetic youth. It’s run by an instructor who is very knowledgeable about tennis and can provide very helpful tips. And while there is a level of intensity and focus while we’re playing, there is enough time while waiting to rotate back into play to have some idle chit chat, although it’s usually about what’s happening on the court. Here are a couple of photos of participants heading down to the court and after they got down there and started to warm up. And no live ball session is complete without Harry either coming on the court for a bit to run after balls or observing from above.

The real socialization takes place after the sessions, where we have some food and drinks and spend some time hanging out together. Live ball typically starts at 7 and usually goes to about 9:15, and then most people leave between 10 and 10:30, so it’s a fairly late evening, particularly when I have to get up the next morning at 5:00 a.m. for my training session.

I am not someone who typically reaches out to socialize with others so having people come to The TenniSphere is so additive to my life because I am very energized by the time I spend with those who come over for the live ball sessions. Here are a few more pictures of some of what has been served along with one of the groups that came by last week.

Of course, Harry had to be part of the mix.

The TenniSphere has enabled me to get continuous exercise and to be part of a community of people that has helped me expand and deepen my social relationships. Our live ball sessions help me reach the first weekly milestone of connecting with at least five different types of people. And, while everyone plays tennis, they are of various ages, backgrounds, genders, vocations, and interests such that there is always something to learn and to explore more deeply as we get together more regularly.?

I have felt strongly that the creation of The TenniSphere has deepened and strengthened my relationship with Heather as we worked very well as a team on its creation and have shared a common vision for what we wanted to bring to the world with it. Best of all is that we can hit together on a regular basis. It’s also brought Jacob and I even closer as we have hit as well and he has been part of some of the social events we have hosted at the house. He has also had some of his friends at the house to play tennis together.

And while I sometimes question the financial sanity of what I invested to create The TenniSphere, which of course includes The Eleven (the name of the court), I also know that having a robust social fitness plan can contribute to quality longevity and there is no better catalyst for this than what we created. It has already served as a magnet for great people that have expanded our social lives immensely.

How do you put a price on that?

I will sign off with a brief anecdote confirming that I should have no regrets for what I have invested because what was created was so special. We recently held a gathering at the house to celebrate my birthday and our recent wedding. One of the guests does audio, visual, and tech work for countless very high end homes in Newport Beach and other ritzy areas. He said he has seen it all and he has become so jaded that he is very rarely impressed when he walks into a house now. He told me, and prefaced it with that he wasn’t trying to butter me up, that what we created was truly one of a kind and that he has never seen anything like it. I must say that what he shared made me feel very good that we have created our own private Wonderland or Oz and I can’t wait to see what the next forty years brings to our lives as a result.

Here is one final picture of Harry saying goodbye to some of the players after a great night of tennis, food, drinks, and socializing.