Your physical and emotional wellness is strongly connected to the quality of your social affiliations. The brain is a relational organ that requires constant social interactions to stay in a positive state that supports cognitive and emotional resilience. The resiliency of your entire nervous system is encoded in its regular cues of safety and love it derives from its environment.
Social isolation is by far a bigger risk factor regarding shorter life expectancy than smoking, obesity, diabetes or even hypertension. Humans rapidly degenerate into an immuno-suppressive state in an environment of chronic social deprivation. Isolation compromises your immunity and leaves you vulnerable to foreign invaders such as viruses, bacteria and fungi.
We are certainly better together when we come together and support each other. We all have an innate ability to co-regulate the emotional state of another human. Even though we hurt each other at times, the healing power of social affiliation cannot be over-emphasised. One of your biggest challenges in life could be fighting off the temptation to isolate yourself from your social environment because of your past traumatic, disappointing or betrayal experiences with other humans.
In this clip, I share how social affiliation could be critical to your emotional resilience and physical wellness than anybody is telling you.