Connecting can mean sharing a hearty laugh. Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images
A woman and her fiancé joke and laugh together while playing video games after a long day.
A college freshman interrupts verbal harassment aimed at a neighbor, who expresses gratitude as they walk home together.
A man receives a phone call to confirm an appointment, and stumbles into a deep and personal conversation about racism in America with the stranger on the other end of the line.
Each of these scenarios was recalled by a research participant as a moment of meaningful human connection. One’s sense of belonging and emotional safety with family, friends and communities is built through actual interactions. As these examples suggest, these connections can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Often small and fleeting and sometimes powerfully memorable, moments of connection occur with loved ones and strangers, in person and online.
I spent the past several years exploring moments of connection as a graduate student in psychology, with a particular eye toward how people experienced meaningful connection during the pandemic. It’s not just a little bonus to forge these connections; they have real benefits.
Feeling well connected to others contributes to mental health, meaning in life, and even physical well-being. When loneliness or isolation becomes chronic, human brains and bodies suffer, straining a person’s long-term well-being at least as significantly as major health risks such as obesity and air pollution.
Researchers know what kinds of behavior enhance feelings of social connection. Here are four ways to connect.
1. Heart-to-hearts
For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when asked about meaningful connections are heart-to-heart conversations. These are key moments of emotional intimacy. One person opens up about something personal, often emotional and vulnerable, and in return another person communicates understanding, acceptance and care – what researchers call responsiveness.
For example, I could open up to you about my current experience of becoming a new father, sharing complex and precious sentiments that I would not disclose to just anyone. If I perceive in that moment that you really “get” what I reveal to you, that you accept my feelings as valid, whether or not you can relate to them, and that I matter to you, then I’ll probably feel a sense of closeness and trust.
In emotionally intimate moments, personal sharing is often reciprocal, though a sense of connection can arise whether you are the one opening up or offering responsiveness.
Lending a hand can be one way to build a connection. Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images
2. Giving and receiving help
A key way that people bond is by giving and receiving support. There are two kinds of social support that often figure in moments of connection. Instrumental support is tangibly helping with the practicalities of a solution. For example, if you bring me groceries when I’m under the weather, we would be bonding through instrumental support.
Emotional support is nurturing another’s feelings. If you dropped by to give me a hug when I’m stressed out, this would be emotional support.
Either way, your actions are responsive: You understand my situation and by taking action you show that you care.
While it’s perhaps no surprise that you might feel connected when someone offers you responsive kindness, it works in the other direction too. Supporting others builds that feeling of connection, especially if you sincerely want to help and feel your aid is useful.
To be effective, though, you need to be responding to another person’s needs rather than your own idea of what they need. Sometimes this means offering emotional support to help another person calm down so they can tackle their own problem, despite your own desire to jump in and solve the issue for them.
3. Positive vibes
Vulnerability and support are no joke, but meaningful interactions need not be somber. Research shows that people gain a sense of connection by experiencing positive emotions together. And this sense of connection is not only in your mind. When two people share this kind of good vibe, their bodies coordinate too. They synchronize, with simultaneous gestures and facial expressions, and even biomarkers such as heart rate and hormones shifting in similar patterns.
Human beings rely on these positive, synchronous moments as a basic connecting force beginning in infancy, and people continue to seek out synchronous interactions throughout life. Think of enjoyable activities like singing and dancing together – they’re embodied forms of connection that actually release endorphins that help you feel bonded. Same goes for laughing together, which comes with the bonus that a shared sense of humor suggests a similar sense of reality, which enhances connection.
When someone tells you about a positive event in their life, a reliable way to enhance bonds is to sincerely and enthusiastically respond to their good news: celebrating, congratulating, saying “I’m so happy for you.”
Affection and gratitude can be expressed through words or actions. Sarah Mason/DigitalVision via Getty Images
4. Affirming expressions
Those moments when you let people know how much you appreciate, like or love them can be brief but powerful. Expressing and receiving affection and gratitude are especially well-researched means of bonding. Outright manifestations of affection can come in the form of direct verbal declarations, like saying “I love you,” or physical expressions, like holding hands.
Imprecision and imperfection
Attempts at connection can be complicated by two people’s individual perceptions and preferences.
Humans aren’t mind readers. Anyone’s sense of what others think and feel is at best moderately accurate. To feel connected, it’s not enough that I genuinely understand you or care for you, for example. If you don’t perceive me as understanding or caring as we interact, you likely won’t walk away feeling connected. This is especially an issue when you’re lonely, because loneliness can lead you to view your interactions in a more negative way.
Each person also has different preferences for ways of connecting that more reliably help them to feel bonded. Some people love to talk about their feelings, for example, and may gravitate toward emotional intimacy. Others may open up only with those they deeply trust, but love to connect more widely through humor.
Of course, not all interactions need to be meaningful moments of connection. Even well-bonded infants and caregivers, in that most vital of relationships, are in an observable connected state only 30% of the time.
Moments of connection also need not be extravagant or extraordinary. Simply turning your attention to others when they want to connect yields great relationship benefits.
Gaining insight into various ways of connection may allow you to practice new ways to engage with others. It may also help you simply pay attention to where these moments already exist in daily life: Savoring moments when you feel close to others – or even just recalling such events – can enhance that sense of connection.
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Dave Smallen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Understanding the connections between mental health conditions and substance use disorders
Understanding the connections between mental health conditions and substance use disorders
Updated
The stigma surrounding substance use disorders and mental health conditions has long dominated how both issues are discussed, and how those who experience these issues are seen. Because substance use disorders and mental illness frequently co-occur, meaning individuals experience both at the same time, increased stigma and stereotypical associations of one condition with the other have colored people’s views of both.
Substance use disorders are a type of mental health condition, a disorder affecting the brain that impacts an individual’s ability to moderate their use of substances. Some of the substances commonly associated with this include alcohol, tobacco and nicotine products, opioids like heroin and oxycodone, stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine, and tranquilizers, including Xanax and Valium.
Though they manifest in many different ways, mental illnesses are disorders that disrupt the brain, mood, and behavior, and impact daily life. In 2020, 6.7% (or 17 million) of U.S. adults had both a substance use disorder and at least one other diagnosed mental illness. Those with serious mental illness, or mental illness that significantly impacted daily activities, had particularly high rates of co-occurring substance use disorder with certain substances. Misuse of opioids and tranquilizers, for instance, was roughly 6 percentage points higher among those with serious mental illness than those without a diagnosed mental illness.
Understanding why the two conditions often co-occur relates to recognizing that substance use disorder is a mental health condition, influenced by many of the same factors as other mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia. Genetics, experiences with trauma or violence, environmental conditions, and many other factors impact how and why substance use disorders and other mental health conditions occur. Decreasing the stigma around both conditions will, according to research, likely make receiving treatment easier.
To explore the factors that influence these conditions, Zinnia Health looked at the connection between mental illness and substance use disorder, citing early 2020 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (released in October 2021) and academic studies.
21% of US adults suffer from mental health disorders
Updated
More than half of all U.S. adults will receive a mental illness diagnosis in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many mental health conditions occur together, including depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Substance use disorder also commonly co-occurs alongside other mental health conditions. Despite the common co-occurrence of substance use disorder and other mental illnesses, one condition does not always cause the other, and experiencing one condition does not always mean a person will develop the other.
Family history can influence mental health risk factors
Updated
Over the last couple of decades, scientists have increasingly come to recognize the influence of genetics on mental illness. Most research indicates that while there is no one specific gene responsible for mental health conditions, thousands of gene variants can have small impacts on mental health.
Similarly, family history and genetics account for between 40% and 60% of an individual’s susceptibility to substance use disorder. Certain genetic factors can predispose people to dependence on certain substances. Genes can also interact to alter one’s behaviors toward risk-taking or reward-seeking, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of trying substances in the first place.
Research has also shown that similar genes are responsible for the risk of mental illness, as well as for substance use disorder, illuminating new ways of understanding the high rates of both issues occurring simultaneously.
Stress and trauma can be contributing factors for developing mental health disorders
Updated
Traumatic experiences, as well as acute stress, have been shown to have the capacity to alter the brain, particularly the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex (which deal with emotion, memory, and decision-making, respectively). But environmental factors like trauma and stress also have the potential to change genetic expression, bringing out some genetic material that may have previously been dormant. The idea that environmental circumstances can trigger changes in our bodily systems, called epigenetics, also means that mental illness or substance use disorder can sometimes be brought on by traumatic or stressful situations.
Apart from the biological changes stress and trauma can inflict on the body and brain, experiencing traumatic events can cause some to self-medicate in order to deal with psychological distress. Using psychoactive substances to self-medicate can create the risk of developing future mental health conditions, as well as a substance use disorder.
Substance use can increase risk for developing other mental health conditions
Updated
Substance use can change the brain in many of the same areas altered by mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, impulse-control disorders, and schizophrenia. Psychoactive substances can also bring on symptoms similar to those caused by mental illness, including psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations, altered sleep patterns, mood swings, and increased risk-taking behavior. And if substance use begins before the onset of mental illness, it can increase the risk of developing a mental health condition in predisposed individuals.
There are many effective drug therapies for treating mental health conditions
Updated
Medication-based therapy has proven to be effective for many with both mental health conditions and substance use disorder. With medical supervision, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers, among others, can help mediate mental illness symptoms by reducing irregular brain activity, managing physical symptoms like increased heart rate, and changing how compounds like serotonin are used in the brain.
Medication-assisted therapy can also be successful in treating substance use disorder and addiction—particularly when used in conjunction with counseling and behavioral therapy. Medications like methadone can help safely prevent recovering individuals from using substances and can reduce uncomfortable or dangerous withdrawal symptoms.
Targeted behavioral therapies can also help patients with co-occuring mental health conditions
Updated
Behavioral therapies, along with medication-based treatments, can help those coping with substance use disorder and or a mental health condition. Integrated treatments, which involve treating both the substance use disorder and the mental illness simultaneously, are seen as the most effective since they acknowledge the often-intermingled causes and symptoms of the co-occurring conditions.
There are, however, many barriers that keep over half of those experiencing a mental health condition from receiving treatment. Stigma around both mental illness and substance use disorder can make seeking help feel shameful and can inspire fear and real-world consequences for wanting treatment.
Many individuals suffering from a mental health condition or a substance use disorder fear losing a job or being ostracized from their community or family. Another major barrier to receiving treatment is its often-prohibitive financial cost. Stark disparities have emerged in who has access to quality treatment, falling along class and racial lines. While 37.6% of white adults with a diagnosis-based need for mental health or substance use disorder treatment received care, only 22.4% of Latinos and 25% of Black Americans did.
This story originally appeared on Zinnia Health and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
