A Psychological Vaccine

Friendships: A psychological “vaccine” against mental and physical illness (Sias and Bartoo. 2007).

By now, a lot of us are familiar with independent protective factors that can help protect our mental health from deteriorating and keep our minds in a good place. For example, good sleep hygiene, eating a nutritious diet, or exercising regularly to name a few. But social support has been shown to be an important protective factor for mental health. Social support is different from other recommendations as it is not something we can achieve independently. We have to work with others. This can make social support a real area of difficulty for many people. Hopefully, this informative piece will help provide you with some guidance on how to achieve your “Psychological vaccine” ✅.

👉 What is Social Support? Social support has been defined as the experience or perception of feeling loved, cared for, esteemed, and valued by others, and part of a social network of mutual obligations and assistance 👭👫 (Wills 1991). There are different forms of social support…

🔶 Informational Support - This is when one individual assists another to understand a stressful event better and to understand what coping strategies are needed. This guidance and information can help the person to understand how best to respond to the stressful event. 🔶 Emotional Support - This is when one person provides the other with warmth and nurturance, making sure they know they are valued and cared for. 🔶 Instrumental Support - This involves the provision of tangible assistance. An example of this could be driving a poorly friend to the doctor.

Social support can just be the perception that these are available, should they be needed. In other words, just knowing that you could request these types of support is comforting alone. (Taylor 2011)

👉 Where Does Social Support Come From? Social support can come from many different areas of our life. It can be good to have support from various domains to avoid “putting all of our eggs into one basket” so to speak. By this, I mean if you only receive social support from your co-workers, you may find things difficult if you were to change professions. So it can be good to branch out!

You may receive social support from … 🔵 A partner 🔵 Family members 🔵 Friends 🔵 Co-workers 🔵 Social and community ties 🔵 A pet (Allen, Blascovich, & Mendes, 2002 ).

👉 Benefits Of Social Support There is substantial research demonstrating the benefits of social support for our mental health. Below I have included a few of these to illustrate the importance of social support...

✅ Social support has been consistently demonstrated by research to reduce psychological distress such as anxiety or depression during times of stress (Fleming, Baum, Gisriel, & Gatchel, 1982 ; Lin, Ye, & Ensel, 1999 ; Sarason, Sarason, & Gurung, 1997 ) - cited by Taylor 2011). ✅ Social support has been shown to improve the rates of recovery in those experiencing depression (Sayal 2002). ✅ It can improve your ability to manage problems on your own (although this sounds counterintuitive) (American Psychological Association 2022). ✅ Social support can improve your sense of autonomy and self-esteem (American Psychological Association 2022).

👉 How Can it Be Explained? There are a variety of different psychological theories explaining how relationships with others are beneficial to our mental health.

One of these is the Stress-buffering theory. This model argues that having adequate social support can help protect (buffer) an individual from experiencing the negative effects of life stressors on mental health (Cohen and Wills 1985). These buffering effects are greatest under high stress, and when the individual perceives they will receive support when needed (Cohen 2004, Thoits 2011).

👉 Are Bad Relationships Better Than No Relationships? This is an area I really want to place a strong emphasis on. So many of us end up in unhealthy relationships and friendships through fear of being lonely. We’re often also too scared to end the friendship out of fear of how not having that person in our life may be. There is a lot of evidence that unhealthy relationships are detrimental to our well-being. In these instances, they would not be acting as a protective factor for our mental health.

Adult friendships that have been characterised by frequent conflict, inequality, and antagonism have been demonstrated to have higher rates of mental health symptoms when compared to positive friendships (Bagwell et al., 2005). These types of friendships can trigger symptoms of psychological distress (Bagwell et al., 2005). If someone does not honour you and your boundaries or exhibits toxic behaviour towards you, then you need to remember to prioritise your own values and reevaluate the relationship.

👉 How To Maintain Social Support?

It takes work from both parties to maintain a relationship. Sometimes, you may need to give more and other times the scales may tip and it is you who requires more. That is ok. Relationships require a balance of give and take. Here are some suggestions for how you can maintain the social support you have … ✍️ Keep being true to yourself. ✍️ Reach out to people you haven’t interacted with in a while. ✍️ Make sure you are being a good friend yourself. ✍️ Ask for support when you need it. ✍️ Make plans to see and spend time with people!

👉 How To Build New Social Support? It can feel scary to think about developing new friendships and relationships. That is ok, and it is normal. It is anxiety-inducing to put yourself out there and to open yourself up to new people. It is important to take things at your own pace and to make sure you are comfortable. I have included a few ideas of how you can build new friendships when you are ready…

✍️ Start participating in a group focused on something you enjoy. This is a great way to form new friendships, as you are in an environment with people that share common interests with you. It can also relieve the pressure of trying to make new friends as you’re there to enjoy yourself and making friends is secondary. ✍️ Further develop existing acquaintances into new friendships. ✍️ Accept invitations to events you would usually turn down.

👉 Difficulties with Social Support

👆Lots of us find building and maintaining relationships with people particularly difficult. There are various different reasons for this, some stemming all the way back to childhood. Experiencing childhood abuse is something that adversely impacts our ability to form and maintain friendships. Another example is having experience with another person breaking your trust. Being involved in an abusive relationship as an adult can also make it harder to build new friendships. Just remember that it is ok to take your time and do what feels right for you. Everything needs to be done at your pace.

🤗 Remember, you are not alone! Happio is here to help! 🤗