How to nurture your ‘social biome’ as lockdown restrictions ease
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
I can’t help but smile at strangers, even when my brain is racing through to-do lists or fretting about the time. It always makes me feel better – especially when they smile back.
So as pubs and shops open today I'm looking forward to more of these small interactions on which many of us thrive. Like many I have found the lockdowns quite difficult and, on the rare occasions when I engaged with strangers, I felt more cheerful, more connected. It sounds odd, but these moments warmed the impersonal remove of giving people another wide berth when our paths looked to converge; inching against walls and swerving into roads.
And yet perhaps it’s not that odd: studies indicate that these tiny instances of connection are just as vital to our social wellbeing as the ones with people with whom we share bonds of love and trust. According to researchers, a balanced ‘social biome’ requires us to have a good mix of various kinds of interactions. In the same way that the gut requires a mix of bacteria to keep it in good digestive health – to have a healthy gut microbiome – so too do humans require a mix of social relationships, however fleeting or intense, to thrive.
After the restrictions of the past year, our social biomes, as they’ve been termed by researcher Jeffrey Hall, professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, are almost certain to be unbalanced. We’ve had a surfeit of some forms of interaction – with those with whom we live, with our ‘friends’ on social media and with Zoom meetings and get togethers, for example. Other interactions that we may previously have relied on for good social health, even without knowing that we did, have been removed: the large gatherings at which we circulate between more distant friends and acquaintances; the chat with a stranger at a bus stop; the post-weekend debrief with a work colleague.
It’s interesting to note that, according to Hall’s research, those with healthiest social biomes spent substantially more time with friends and family than those with the least healthy biomes – 66 per cent as opposed to 50 per cent – which would tend to imply that the close quarters in which we’ve lived for the duration of the pandemic would see us flourishing. After all, even at their laxest, restrictions allowed for groups of no more than six to gather, causing almost all of us to give priority to those we cherish the most.
Yet there is another element to be considered: those with the healthiest biomes had more choice about how and when they interacted with those family friends. Not only have such choices been in short supply through the lockdowns, but those other moments – the “small moments of communication” as Hall puts it – have been scarce as well. Our social diets have, in short, been grievously unbalanced with a lack of variety: an absence of some nutrients and an overabundance of others. And, just as with a food diet, this impacts on our wellness. We are likely to be, in social terms, pretty badly out of shape.
So how can we prepare ourselves for these coming months as our social circles open up and we start to venture beyond our household bubbles and groups of six? We will once again be running into friends of friends at lunch, or having a chat with a familiar face in the gym changing room. There will, at some point, be festivals and parties. Will we be ready for them?
According to anthropologist Professor Robin Dunbar, the incremental nature of the government’s roadmap – starting with small groups of six and eventually building back up to larger scale gatherings – is, in fact, consistent with how we are socially wired. His theory – dubbed “Dunbar’s Number” – is based on the idea that our social brain has finite resources for investment in relationships. The pattern is something akin to the concentric circles formed when a stone is dropped into a pond: the smallest, and closest, are also the most clearly defined; the circle gets weaker the further away from the centre it goes.
The tightest circle consists of just five people and is followed by cumulative layers of 15 (good friends and other family members), 50 (primarily friends) and 150 (meaningful contacts – those on your Christmas card list). The groups consist of both family members and friends; you will naturally, says Dunbar, be closer to some family members than others “but what determines these layers is how frequently you see people, and how much time you are able to invest in interacting with them”.
For that reason, he adds, the position of people within these layers can be fluid – we ‘drift apart’ from people we were close to and someone else takes their place in our closest circles. Alternatively, someone who has been on the peripheries may become more significant in our lives. This is quite likely to have happened over the past year, as we’ve been forced away from some relationships and locked tighter within others.
Even so, we can take courage from the fact that the gradual loosening of restrictions and increasing of group sizes fits well with what our social brain can manage, as the rings pool out from a world that’s been so long confined. It’s also, points out life coach Natalie Gray, an opportunity to take stock of your needs and expectations and to see how well your friendships are nourishing your social biome. Just as we may need to clean up habits around diet or drinking as lockdown eases, it’s also, she says, “a good time to do a ‘friendship health check-in’ and consider how beneficial your current circle is to your life”.
How to improve your social biome
“The bottom line,” says Prof Dunbar, “is to do what comes naturally. It doesn’t matter what you do with the people you choose to see; the important thing is meeting up with them.” On that basis, then, don’t feel that the reopening of pubs means that you need to be there with bells on if this doesn’t feel right for you: flex your social muscles in ways that feel comfortable.
Social media is not always the scourge it’s often made out to be. “Like telephone conversations, these digital platforms serve as a type of placeholder,” he says. “They’re not as satisfying as face-to-face interaction but they can help to slow the decline of relationships.” The bottom line? Keep using FaceTime and commenting on Instagram posts to maintain connection from a distance, until you’re in a position to get together in person.
Remember that everyone is in the same boat. This is not a case of being away for the summer while all of your school friends have been together in the village. Lockdown has been something of a leveller: hard, isolating and stressful for everyone. As such, we can all try to boost our own social health, as well as that of others, by extending invitations and welcoming people into our circles.
Friendship Health Check-in
With only enough emotional energy to invest in a small number of genuine friendships, it’s important to ensure that these friendships add value to your life. Natalie Gray recommends regular check-ins, answering “yes” or “no” to the following questions, depending on how you feel the majority of the time.
Do you have similar values?
Do you have things in common?
When you are with this person do you feel heard?
Do you feel better after talking to them about your issues?
Do you feel you are equals?
Would they answer your call in the middle of the night?
Do you look forward to seeing them?
Do they regularly check in to see how you are?
Can you rely on them?
Do you have recent positive memories about your relationship?
An answer of “no” to two or three questions indicates that you should be asking whether this relationship is adding positive value to your life. What would your life look like without it?
If the “no” list is longer than the “yes” list, you may need to question whether this is a relationship that is, or has become, toxic.
“If you decide that the relationship is not working for you, your first option is to talk honestly with them about how you feel, aiming to set new boundaries,” says Gray. “As you move forward, continue to review the health of the relationship. However, if this is not an option or is unsuccessful, it is most likely time to cut ties.”
