How much daily human connection do you need for your health and happiness?

Original Medium Post HERE

This blog is available in five different languages. To select your preferred language, simply click on the yellow button located in the lower right-hand corner of your screen.

Should human connection become like exercise? Will it?

Eastie Rising: providing a daily dose of exercise — and connection — for more than ten years

“When I feel the urge to exercise, I lay down and wait for it to pass.” –my birth father

— —

From Egyptian sandbags to Richard Simmons

Throughout human history, “exercise” was automatic. When people hunted, gathered, farmed; and traveled to a stream to gather water, do laundry and go to the bathroom, they didn’t need a fitness wearable (good news because it wasn’t invented yet).

Greater than the risk of not enough exercise was the risk of expending too many calories, so humans who chose laziness when they could passed their genes down to us.

Not until permanent settlements with professional philosophers, soothsayers, and poets did anyone risk not getting their steps in. Some ancient Egyptians lifted bags of sand to build strength, but most ancient Egyptians had plenty of manual labor.

Not until much more recently, as more people drove to work behind desks and fewer walked to work in factories and fields, did insufficient exercise become a problem for the majority of a population.[1]

Not until the 1980s did entities like the CDC realize how important Sweatin’ to the Oldies could be for health. Promoting exercise became an important public health strategy.

The world misses Richard Simmons. Image from https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/richard-simmons-sweatin-oldies

— —

— —

More human space, less human connection

Is human connection following the same pattern as exercise?

Home Alone

As recently as the 1800s, American parents had children like bunnies. They all crowded into a two-room house, often with grandparents and other extended family, always without Netflix. Like it or not, there was a lot of human interaction — and not a lot of privacy for parents to produce tens of children.

Outside the Tiny Houses Classic Edition, non-hermits relied on human collaboration to meet many daily wants and needs.

Our modern, negative conception of loneliness did not arise until around 1800.

Since then, forced human proximity, and the need for human interaction, have continued a downward trend.

In the US, the median number of household members has continued to decline, while the median size of each house has more than doubled since the Baby Boom.

— —

Lost in New York

In cities like Boston and New York, grocery delivery supported those with limited mobility for years — but not too many people used it.

At my local supermarket, I often had long conversations about housing policy with our then-future State Senator, Lydia Edwards. I laughed with the checkout clerks, who were always joking with each other.

Then COVID. Now, I go to the store, but only for pickup. I know the people who bring the grocery bags to the car, but we are not addressing the housing crisis in two minutes of human interaction.

As a child Skyflyer on the transatlantic redeye, I learned about my neighbor’s trip to Lebanon. My children watch Lego Batman on personal screens inflight.

A vintage Skyflyer pin. Image from TheVintagePinStop on Etsy.

We’re meeting on Zoom while sometimes checking email. We’re booking travel and shopping online (or self-checkouting, until the sensor fails to recognize the antiperspirant on the scale, and I need the clerk’s badge for a reset). A “night out” has become contactless delivery of burritos followed by streaming Succession (if, like me, you are a little behind on shows).

The world has more people than ever, yet we can more easily go days without meaningfully interacting with any of them.

Our lazy genes and social anxiety and fear often lead people to make the isolated choice.

— —

— —

The exercise solution?

As we did with sedentariness in the 80s, we now see the health and mental health consequences of isolation. Just as we recognized the need for jogging[2] then, so now we see the need for a public health approach to social connection.

Ron Burgundy image form this informative site (physicalculturestudy)

Soon after the expression “Couch Potato” took off in the 1970s, many forms of unnatural voluntary exercise took off too. We bought kettlebells, took Pilates classes, chose to use treadmills.

Experts have provided a progressively evolving set of recommendations for minutes/ day, days/ week, and workout intensity to achieve desired health and mental health outcomes.

Will we develop a similar approach to human interaction? Could we, for example, recommend at least 30 minutes of intense IRL human connection/ day?

— —

— —

The upsides

There could be pluses to a daily dose recommendation. People might reach out to friends or acquaintances and ask, “Do you want to get your connection time in together?”

It could sound awkward. It could sound like using each other. It could require vulnerability. At first.

However, look how we’ve destigmatized some mental health concerns. Social media influencers often share mental health challenges. Maybe we could do the same for social interaction and loneliness.

Maybe if we specify a recommended daily serving, people will feel more comfortable reaching out to each other to connect — for their health.

After the awkwardness, maybe they’ll stay — for each other.

— —

— —

Beyond a daily dose

We chose exercise. Then we learned prolonged sitting still brings a variety of negative health outcomes. We didn’t choose one time a day to hunt, gather, run away from tigers and dance around a fire. We moved in spurts throughout the day.

We also didn’t have recliners. Sitting on stumps required more muscle engagement.

Human connection also was an all-day thing.

We must collectively find more ways to make the social path: the live human interaction path, the downhill (easier) path. Because we are wired to be together, but even more wired to be lazy.

In the meantime, we often do better with a specific, measurable goal (like 30 minutes a day of IRL social connection, or of cardio) than an amorphous one (interact with real people, and move, throughout the day). Maybe for now, a minimum daily dose of connection is a good place to start.

Stay joyful, East Boston!

— —

— —

Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Look out each week for our posts about boosting joy the only way we can: in community. And join us in celebrating Joy:us on September 29.

—

[1] In many human populations, the majority of people still move a lot to meet their family’s needs.

[2] Ron Burgundy saw the trend — but didn’t know how much we needed it.