Why Relationships Matter

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Being around people isn't the same as truly making connections.

Research on loneliness suggests that showing up isn't what matters, it's whether you feel like you belong.

Four questions can help you figure out if you have deep relationships.

We have the ability to impact our happiness through our everyday actions with others.

Okay, so don’t look now, but if you had to guess, how many social events do you have on your calendar for this week?

Maybe you’ve calendared your workouts twice a week with a friend or penciled in coffee with a neighbor. Do you go to book clubs religiously? On paper, you look “busy,” but here is the million-dollar question: Does going to all of the activities on your calendar really make you feel more connected?

That’s the problem; it’s common to confuse being booked with being connected. Just because you’re filling up that calendar doesn’t mean you’re not struggling with loneliness. It’s confusing because we are around others and talking to people, but that doesn’t always translate to true connection.

The thing is, science tells us that just being in the presence of others doesn’t give us the result we’re looking for. If you spend a lot of time with people and still feel like you don’t know people, this post is for you.

We can look at the research on loneliness to help us navigate this issue. In a study from Barcelona, Spain, researchers looked at 320 adults who reported high levels of loneliness to understand it further. In the study, half of the group participated in organized outdoor group sessions that focused on helping people build relationships. The other half of the group was just given information about local activities and told to join them on their own.

The results showed that after only three months,........

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