Social health sits beside physical and mental health and deserves its own set of routines, because it won't take care of itself.
The idea
Ask someone "How healthy are you?" and they picture their last meal, their yoga mat, maybe their last therapy session. Almost nobody thinks about their relationships. Loneliness is as bad for us as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and you can feel alone while surrounded by friends, colleagues and family. Physical health gets exercise, a diet and vitamins. Social health deserves a set of routines too.
How to do it
Choose your own adventure. My own list:
A daily reminder to text a friend or colleague, and room on the calendar for one or two deeper catch-ups a week.
A way to remember the relationships I care about.
A dinner or cocktail party every few weeks or months, and a community or two of like-minded people.
A quarterly personal update to my network, and a daily question: "Did I connect with someone?"
Example
Over unremarkable pasta at one of my dinners, Brandon shared that after the isolation of the pandemic he'd evaluated his social health and made a plan. He built a routine, reconnected with old friends and colleagues, and still keeps it up because of how much joy it brings him.
Relatable: "Remembering the relationships you care about" is on my own list (if only there was a tool for that...). It's the one I built Relatable for, but any reminder system counts. How-to: The 10-minute morning check-in, Know who to reach out to next.
Related frameworks
The Loneliness Epidemic: Loneliness is a public-health emergency, and the fixes are structural: join a community, host people, build tiny group chats.
The Spiral of Loneliness: Loneliness triggers stress and hypervigilance that make us less likely to reach out. Knowing it's wiring is the way out.
The Core Six Habits: A weekly operating system: organize 10 contacts, 3 scrollbacks, protect CEO time, 1 A outreach, 5 B outreaches, 2 fringe outreaches.
Join a Community: Find a group where people would notice if you stopped showing up, and skip any where the first question is "what's your ideal client?"