Building Healthy Lifestyles: Community, Social Connectedness and Relationships

The next blog post in my Building Healthy Lifestyles series is about community, social connectedness, and relationships and how these contribute to a healthy thriving life.

Community is such a critical part of building a healthy lifestyle. It plays a really important role in our health and wellbeing.

A lot of people are still feeling the effects of the pandemic, quarantines and social isolation making community and social connectedness more important now than ever before. Particularly, at a time when mental health issues are on the rise.

Humans are social creatures. We have an innate need to connect and be social with other people. The connections we create with others adds meaning and value to our lives.

For most, our immediate family are some of the first people that we connect and socialise with. They play a huge role in shaping our lives during our formative years, offering support for our growth and development into adulthood.

As we move through the different stages of life we meet other people, we make friends of varying ages and sexes. We build a variety of relationships. These relationships offer us a support base, a safe zone and a place to express our concerns. We socialise and celebrate life’s achievements with them. They know intimate details about our lives and offer support during the rough times. They are some of our closest confidants.