Skyline Happenings

Thanks to Sybil-Ann

By Jancee Dunn

We have reached the seventh and final day of the Happiness Challenge! Congratulations on your efforts to take care of your emotional, psychological, and physical health by building and strengthening your connections. You’ve assessed your social universe, made an eight-minute phone call (or two), chatted up someone you didn’t know, expressed your thanks, reached out to people at work, and put plans on the calendar. (If you missed a day, that’s OK. You can find the previous installments here, then do them at your own pace.)

As I’ve taken this challenge alongside you, I’ve made a vow to prioritize my relationships and view them as a vital component of my overall health. Just like prioritizing exercise, or sleep, I’ve come to understand that my relationships require maintenance.

Now that we have the tools to improve our “social fitness,” the work of sustaining it begins. I called Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the co-author of “The Good Life” who created this challenge with me and other experts, to get three quick tips for the year ahead.

1. Set specific relationship goals for the year

Dr. Waldinger advised to commit to making strengthening your bonds an ongoing practice. “Be realistic,” he said. “Could you do one small thing a few times a week to promote connections, like send one text or email to someone to say hello? Could your goal be to get together with a friend once each week?” Start small and level up as time allows, he said.

Shasta Nelson, the author of “Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness,” suggested making a list of the people you want to feel closer to a year from now. Having this physical reminder will help you look for opportunities to connect with them throughout the year.

It’s helpful to use that same specificity when making plans, Ms. Nelson added. Replace vague invitations like “We should get together sometime” with “How’s next Tuesday?”

2. Commit to consistency

“This is a hard one,” Ms. Nelson said, “but recognize that you won’t grow closer to people unless, and until, you’re interacting with them consistently. If you are not participating in something where you’re seeing the same people regularly, like a book club, or church, then you have to set up the consistency yourself, and make that happen. That involves scheduling and reaching out and initiating.” The relationships with the people you wrote down on that piece of paper won’t go forward, she added, “if you don’t figure out ways to have more shared experiences and conversations.”

I am haunted by a data point Dr. Waldinger mentioned: Over and over, throughout the lives of participants in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, he saw friendships deteriorate because of neglect.

Being purposeful about investing time and energy in your relationships is critical for your well-being, Dr. Waldinger said. “The frequency and the quality of contact with other people are two major predictors of happiness,” he said.

Dr. Waldinger phones the co-author of “The Good Life,” Marc Schulz, a friend of 30 years, every Friday. “We talk a lot about our research, but also about our families and our travels and all sorts of things, and I cherish it and look forward to it,” he said.

I have decided to focus on my relationships every Saturday, and to make concrete plans with people for the week ahead. Yesterday, I reached out to a friend I hadn’t seen in years, and we have an eight-minute phone date on Wednesday and plans to go to dinner in two weeks.

3. Ritual is key

An easy way to make the habit stick is to transform even mundane activities into rituals. Cassie Holmes, a professor at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management and the author of “Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most,” said her research showed that “among some folks, ordinary experiences with loved ones at the kitchen table produce as much happiness as extraordinary experiences like that once-in-a-lifetime-vacation.”

A nudge to make you prioritize these ordinary moments with others, Dr. Holmes said, is to routinize them and rebrand them as rituals. Give them a name, she said, like the standing “Thursday morning coffee date” she has with her daughter.

If you have extended family nearby, Dr. Waldinger suggested starting new traditions or solidifying old ones with them. You can try a new inexpensive restaurant together every month, watch backyard movies if the weather allows or have a family trivia night.

In the past few years, a tradition has sprung up in my extended family in which we all converge at one house to help do a hated, frequently-postponed chore in exchange for a meal. Most recently, the task was to pick up stones in my parents’ yard, which had always enraged my dad by damaging his lawn mower. There were a dozen of us, so the task was accomplished quickly and with good humor. In the end, we were rewarded with chicken and biscuits.

Ed note: This challenge takes only a little effort–and is so important for our health and happiness. What ways can you think of to improve our connectedness? Perhaps allowing more singles to walk in to the dining room for lunch or dinner? Bring back line dancing? Women’s “gal talk”? More visiting to and from the Terraces? Laughter therapy? Propinquity (look it up!)? Every Friday happy hour (with no agenda other than social gathering)?

By Jancee Dunn

This is Day 6 of Well’s 7-day Happiness Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.

Predicting how a future event will make us feel is known in psychology as affective forecasting — and most human beings are pretty lousy at it. “People are terrible at knowing what is good for them,” said Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “and we seem particularly bad at forecasting the benefits of relationships.”

It can be tempting to just stay home rather than socialize, said Dr. Waldinger, who is an author of the new book “The Good Life.” “We’ll think, ‘I know I’m going to be happy if I stay home and watch Netflix but not if I go to that party.’”

But interacting with other people, he said, often “improves our mood and makes us happier than we expect it will. Making the choice to go out and be with people involves risk, usually a small one — but offers the possibility for encounters that are enlivening, interesting or just plain fun.”

Happiness Challenge Day 6: Put a social plan on the calendar

Your exercise for today is to make a social plan — a walk with the old friend you never seem to see, lunch with the former co-worker who always made you laugh — and put it on the calendar. If you’ve ever told someone you like that you should get coffee “sometime,” today’s the day to make it official. Do not cancel or postpone.

“Many of us might be out of shape when it comes to socializing,” said Philip Gable, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware. Motivate yourself to go out by setting small goals instead of larger ones, he suggested. Instead of committing to be at a party for three hours, he said, give yourself a half-hour, or vow that you’ll chat with three people. And of course it doesn’t have to be a party. A face-to-face human interaction of any sort, especially one that might build toward more social dates in the future, is what we’re aiming for today.

There’s a group out there for everybody

A good way to build ties is by joining a group that meets regularly — say, a pickle-ball team at the local gym. Researchers call that regular proximity with other humans propinquity and have shown that the more propinquity we have, the greater the chances are that we’ll form friendships.

To create more propinquity for yourself, get creative. Dig in a neighborhood community garden. Volunteer with a dog-rescue group. Join a local walking club.

A 2016 study found that people who had what the researchers called “multiple group identifications” — such as church communities, hobby groups, support groups or sports teams — had greater levels of happiness. And the more groups they were in, the better. “Overall,” the researchers wrote, “our findings suggest that thinking more about one’s group life (and perhaps putting a plan into action in order to enhance it) could have significant benefits for one’s overall sense of well-being.”

Even introverts need social activities

A 2020 study conducted during the pandemic found that the resulting social isolation was not, as was commonly believed, “an introvert’s paradise.” Even for people who considered themselves introverts, the study authors write, “close human affiliation serves as a protective buffer against social disconnectedness and low mood.”

A self-described introvert, Jenn Granneman, the founder of the online community Introvert, Dear and the author of the upcoming book “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World,” has said that introverts aren’t antisocial but instead selectively social. Introverts can cultivate a sense of belonging by “looking for passions rather than friends,” said Susan Cain, the author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking,” a repudiation of the extrovert ideal. Pursue something that interests you, she said, and “the like-minded friends will come.”

Introverts can summon the resolve to initiate plans by telling themselves they’re “giving the gift of going first,” Ms. Granneman added. “Send the text, ask the question or plan a date. You might be surprised at how much the other person appreciates you reaching out.”

One way Ms. Granneman does this is to buy two tickets, a few months in advance, to any shows or events that catch her eye. When the event rolls around, she said, “having the extra ticket puts some pressure on me, in a good way, to reach out to my network because I want someone to go with me and I don’t want the ticket to go to waste.” Most people are excited to be offered a ticket, she said, and almost always accept.

Here’s a bonus exercise for today: If you receive an invitation this week, say yes when you normally might say no.