What’s the correlation between social support and mental health? Several researches have linked an improvement in physical health and wellbeing and a person’s network of stable and healthy relationships. But what does this mean? In order to understand how it all works, we sought the perspective of Counseling Psychologist at Evolve Counsel, Julianna Asare-Amankwah.
“When we are surrounded by loved ones or even our pets, the feeling of being loved releases a flood of potent hormones into our bloodstream, which not only makes us feel better emotionally, but also strengthens our immune systems significantly,” explains Asare-Amankwah. “Receiving love from others when we are sick actually helps the body heal itself.”
How do you offer social support?
Relationships play a major role in our ability to function well daily – the access to someone to talk to or even spend time with is crucial to this. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what support really is or how to ensure that you’re being supportive to friends and family. According to Asare-Amankwah, there are four types of social support:
Emotional: This involves expressions of empathy, love, trust and care from loved ones, including close friends and family members.
Informational: Periods of stress are times of need for support, and the information provided to a person helps create relief for him or her.
Instrumental: This type of support involves the provision of tangible goods and services or tangible aid to someone.
Appraisal: Have you ever been there for someone who needed you by communicating information that was relevant to their self-evaluation rather than the problem? You provided support.
Cultivating a healthy social environment for yourself
But how can you, the giver of support, create a social support system for yourself? Here are three recommendations by Asare-Amankwah.
- Make time to meet new people and cultivate truly supportive relationships.
- Trust your intuition when you are around certain people; do they make you feel at ease or anxious? Pay attention and act on the signals for healthier relationships.
- Let go of certain people when you need to.
Cultivating and nurturing a healthy family of relationships is key to ensuring that you have the right support when it’s really needed. Be deliberate about investing in your relationships to benefit from this.