Building Social Connection to Live a Long and Healthy Life [Podcast Series]
[:54] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Simon Matthews
Simon Matthews is a Director at the Global Positive Health Institute.
He is faculty and mentor with Wellcoaches.
[1:10] Background in psychology, fitness and coaching
“And the more I, the more I got involved in that, the more I realized that I was kind of tumbling into what we now call lifestyle medicine and, and that helped me draw together even more, those various elements of of exercise, nutrition, and then additionally, things like sleep and mind-body awareness and so on to support not just mental health, but my perspective started expanding to whole person health.”
[5:10] Lifestyle medicine pillars
“Behavioral change is the, is the mechanism, it's the process, it's the engine room by which we bring those pillars to life. And social connection is the way that we link them all together. And we can see social connection, of course, present in all of those pillars.”
[9:06] Knocking down silos in lifestyle medicine
“And the other thing that the siloed thinking does is that it encourages, encourages, I think, practitioners, to become invested in their favorite silo, whatever that may be, whether it's nutrition or physical activity or sleep. And the whole point of lifestyle medicine is that these things go together.”
[12:10] Linking whole person health and social connection
“We know that social, social connection, close relationships, lead to pro health choices, in other words, where we're more likely to make decisions about our health that are good for us when we're socially connected. And there's all sorts of mechanisms for that, including just the idea of social influence, including the idea of role modeling or vicarious learning.”
[17:03] Building strong social networks
“The single biggest difference in terms of a shaping influence on outcomes in behavior change is actually the skills, the resources, the networks of the patient themselves, and their capacity to keep on developing and making use of those over time.”
[22:31] Role modeling
“So a role model is someone, for me, someone who is kind of sufficiently, sufficiently close to me that I feel like I have a connection with at some level, and whose behavior directly influences mine. A hero is more remote than that. A hero is someone who inspires and excites and enthuses, but, but doesn't necessarily help me to adopt particular, a particular behavior or patterns or habits.”
[28:52] Actionable tips for building social connection
“Listen first. And I'm not simply talking about listening to words. I'm talking about listening to emotion, listening to experience, listening to wisdom that the person might have, listening to their own longings. Listen for needs, listen for desires, listen for wishes, and listen to everything that the person expresses in what they say.”
