The need for connection!

Connection is not nice to have, it is essential

It has been known since the 1980s that people who are more socially isolated tend to have worse health, but still it is not clear why loneliness is so intricately linked to our health.

Gillian Matthews, a researcher in this area (see an overview here https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lockdown-loneliness-neuroscience), with fellow researchers, found that there were neurons which seemed to control animals’ desire for social contact.

“Taking that idea suggests that there are mechanisms in place to help maintain social contact in the same way that there are mechanisms in place to make sure we maintain our food intake or our water intake,” Matthews says. Which in turn suggests that social contact is a fundamental need that our brains are hardwired to seek out, already borne out in studies on multiple species. “Without the full level of social contact then survival reduces in numerous species,” Matthews says.

I would suggest that this is also true for humans.  This begs the question as to what “the full level of social contact” means for us humans.

Again, I would suggest, it means having connections where we feel valued and listened to and where we respond in a similar way.

Children will only learn to do this if the adults around them are modelling this form of connection.

Schools are the ideal place to embed this within emerging generations.

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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