MENTAL HEALTH IS OTHER PEOPLE
Very Interesting|Issue 73
Enjoying the weather? Did you see the game? Small talk and simple face-to-face interactions have a bigger effect on our wellbeing than you might think. So, do you fancy a cuppa?
KELLY OAKES
MENTAL HEALTH IS OTHER PEOPLE

Dr Gillian Sandstrom was at the opera when she realised how good she had become at talking to strangers. A woman with Parkinson's was feeling anxious and needed an aisle seat and when Sandstrom noticed what was happening, she asked a whole row of people to move along to make room for the woman and her husband.

"As the couple moved past me, the husband said, Thank you so much, I could never have done that,' and I thought to myself, 'pastGillian couldn't have done that either'," she says. "But now, it's not a big deal."

For Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex, talking to strangers didn't always come naturally. But her research looks at the benefits of those small, day-to-day interactions and so, over the course of her career, she has had plenty of practice. Now, it's a skill she's glad she cultivated. "I would feel like a hypocrite if I didn't talk to strangers, so I do it a lot," she says. "The biggest benefit is I'm just not nervous about other people anymore."

● Body and mind

We all know that a balanced diet and exercise are important parts of staying healthy. But a growing body of research is showing that there's another factor that's even more important for keeping us in good shape, both physically and mentally: our social connections.

A landmark study published in 2010 found that the quality of someone's relationships is a bigger predictor of early death than obesity and physical inactivity, and on a par with smoking and alcohol consumption. "The size of these effects really can't be overstated; they're enormous," says Tegan Cruwys, an associate professor and clinical psychologist at the Australian National University.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 73 من Very Interesting.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 73 من Very Interesting.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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