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How Your Social Life Impacts Your Health – a conversation with author Dawn Marcotte
23 Plays14 days ago
The right type of social life will benefit your physical and mental health
Dawn Marcotte has published several lifestyle focused books and is a coach specialising in retirement coaching.
In this episode of the Abeceder health and wellbeing podcast Fit For My Age Dawn and host Michael Millward explore what a good social life is and how having a good social life can impact your physical and mental health.
Their conversation covers:
- What a social life is
- The importance of working at having a good social life as we get older
- Why it is important to learn how to have a good social life when we are younger
- What a friend is
- The difference between a friend and an acquaintance
- The difference between an ongoing relationship and a fun relationship
- Finding opportunities to build a strong social network
- Getting out of negative social networks
Find out more about Dawn and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Focus
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr makes every stage of the podcast production and distribution processes so easy. All the details are in the description.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and well-being podcast from Abysida. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director Abysida.
Guest Introduction: Dawn Makot
00:00:29
Speaker
Today, Dawn Makot, the author of Success Guaranteed, and I will be exploring how Our social life can impact our physical health. Dawn is based in Minnesota in the United States of America, one of those places I have not yet visited. If I get the opportunity to visit Minnesota, I will make use of my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to make all my travel arrangements.
Benefits of Ultimate Travel Club
00:00:54
Speaker
That is because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I can travel at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and so many more. other travel related purchases.
00:01:07
Speaker
You will find a link with a built-in discount in the description so that just like me you can travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills it is time to make an episode of Fit For My Age that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:25
Speaker
You'll probably also want to share the link with your friends, family and work colleagues as well. Very importantly on Fit For My Age We do not tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Dawn Makot's Author Journey
00:01:40
Speaker
Hello, Dawn. Well, hello, Michael. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really pleased that we finally got this time organized because with time differences and your work commitments and everything, it's taken us a few months. So I'm looking forward very much to hearing much more about this. But please, could we start by you explaining a little bit about the work that you've been doing and how you ended up looking at the connections between social life and physical health.
00:02:08
Speaker
Of course. i will I will try to keep this short. You guys don't need my whole life, but let me just say this, that I am first and foremost an author. I love putting words together to help other people ah solve whatever you know a variety of problems. and I started down that road when my oldest daughter was diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
00:02:32
Speaker
spectrum and at the time insurance did pay for all the extras. So we had to figure out how we're going to pay for this. And somebody said, Hey, there's this thing called the internet and you can go and write and make money there.
00:02:46
Speaker
And it turns out they were right. So that's kind of what got me started down the path. Now, keep in mind, this was back when the internet was brand new. Nobody knew what they were doing. You could slap up a website and people would just show up because that's what happened. But,
00:03:02
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you know, fast forward over the last 15, 20 years, I have addressed a variety of different problems in that time. Parenting special needs children, a lot of entrepreneurial stuff, because I've done a lot of that. um Women of a certain age, it's hard to lose weight, things like
Social Connections After Retirement
00:03:20
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that. But now I've reached a stage in my life where I'm looking at the last 8,000 days of my life, or what a lot of people call retirement. And When you think about that, most people think finance, but there's so much more to planning that. And it really started to concern me, particularly around the social aspects of of life, because I look at my husband, who will be retiring in the next year or so, And he, as is common for many men, most of his friendships have fallen away over the years. And the only people he socializes with are at work.
00:04:02
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So when he leaves work, that loses all of his social contacts. And what is he going to do? Sit on the couch? I don't want him to retire to the couch. So that really got me thinking about, well, how can I help people work?
00:04:16
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with that, which led me down the path of of doing some interesting reading about, you know, how to make people or how to happiness in general and and social networks.
Diverse Social Networks for Health
00:04:30
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And then I discovered or rediscovered how important they are to just your general health.
00:04:36
Speaker
It really impacts your physical health and mental health, which I did not really understand at the time. So, you know, that's kind of a long story to say that that in discovering how important social life is as an introvert myself. it really made me want to reach out to other people to help them set themselves up for success throughout their life by making sure that they have quality relationships ongoing
00:05:09
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across their life, not just at work or just at church or just at, you know, in the neighborhood or whatever it is that that you have multiple facets or people have multiple facets of friendships and relationships which will help them be healthier overall.
00:05:26
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It sounds as if your husband is going to be very busy in his retirement. If I have anything to say about it, yes, he will. Oh, poor Blake. I'm sure he'll have a long and happy retirement, though. but I hope so. I hope so. Let's start, first of all, because we're talking about social life. and You've mentioned things like friendships and relationships.
Friends vs. Acquaintances
00:05:50
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What do you mean when you talk about a social life? So I know people say social life and you start thinking about you know going to parties or going out with friends or or very extroverted activities. But what I'm really talking about is a social network.
00:06:10
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Who are the people that if it all goes down the drain, you know you can call and they will listen to you. They will help you out. Who are the people you can count on to, um you know, send you a birthday card or stay in contact with you? It's all about ongoing relationships, not just the let's have fun relationships, but the people that you can count on and contact when things are bad.
00:06:39
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And I, you know, people just don't think about it that way. They really tend to think about, like I said, like who can i have fun with? And there's so much more to a social network than who can you have fun with.
00:06:50
Speaker
So you're saying is people confuse the people that they hang out with, the people that they meet in a social environment as being the people that they have as friends, whereas it might be more realistic to describe them as people that we know, people who are acquaintances.
00:07:08
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but not friends. right yeah yeah You're reminding me of an assembly that I had at school, which is longer ago than I would really like to remember.
00:07:21
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But sitting amongst all of the other pupils, and the head teacher was saying, I want you to tell me, someone one to tell me what a friend is. And the thing was, you had to put your hand up and say something. If you hadn't put your hand up, each term at some point, then you were in trouble. oh dear So all that sort of stuff. It was part of the education is that you should be i'm capable of talking in front of the crowd.
00:07:48
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Everyone got it. Everyone came up who put their hand up and came up with something was told that they were wrong. oh they
Cultural Differences in Friendship Value
00:07:56
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no They were wrong. They were wrong. And he said, a friend is someone that cares about you.
00:08:04
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yeah And that's what you're talking about, isn't it? it is Someone who isn't hanging out with you because you're perceived to be cool, because you can get them into somewhere or because you've got something that someone wants. right no the The friend is the person who, like you say, when the chips are down, cares enough about you to help you pick them up again.
00:08:25
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Exactly. Yes. And, you know, there are different levels of friendship. The other thing I like to point out to people, again, i am an introvert. I have four friends. I'm happy with that.
00:08:38
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Our culture, at least in America, tends to be very focused on being extroverted. More is better. Have as many friends as you can. And that's not necessarily the right way to go for everyone. I would feel so overwhelmed if I had more friends than that because I enjoy spending one-on-one time with them and there are only so many hours in the day and only so many hours in the week, right? So what I have is comfortable for me and I know that those people are people that I enjoy and and will support me. My father, who is the single most extroverted man on the planet, wants to talk to four people every day before breakfast. That's what keeps him happy. Right. um So it's it's really important to think about who you are as a person and what you're comfortable with.
Comfort with Number of Friends
00:09:30
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Don't do what you
00:09:33
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you know quote unquote should do get more friends have friends that you are comfortable with have and it doesn't have it they could be people you're related to it doesn't have to be you know strangers or whatever i some of my best friends you know my mother was my best friend for years and years and years before she passed and someday i hope to have that same relationship with one or more of my daughters, but we'll see They're still at that.
00:09:59
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I'm fine stage. So we'll have to wait and see on that. When I do a presentation in schools about how people who are leaving education can answer the questions that an HR professional like me asks them, um yeah know I tell them that their qualifications are really not that interesting for me. I want to know what they're like as a person.
00:10:21
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sure Part of that then is like, you tell me about what you do when you're not studying for qualifications. sure Tell me about how you socialize and tell me about what you do with your friends. And then i tell them as well that the thing that I need you to do is to explain to me how you're going to build a social life that hasn't been enforced on you.
00:10:41
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Because when you are sent to school, you end up in a class with 20 30 people who've become your friends because you've all been told to go to the same place at the same time yep and study the same subjects. Very true. When you leave that environment, much as like you said, when your husband retires, all of his friendships are connected to work, those people will no longer have the same thing in common.
00:11:06
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Correct. right Correct. And it makes it more difficult for to maintain the friendship. So as an HR professional, what I'm interested in is like, how are you going to deal with the decompression from the job that you are going to be doing. How are you going to let off steam?
00:11:22
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How are you going to relax and how are you going to re-energize yourself? What sort of things are you going to do when the structure of an educational establishment at any level is not there?
Establishing Meaningful Connections
00:11:33
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And it comes down to you've got to find people that you care about and who care about you. But that making that connection is also about finding people who share an interest with you.
00:11:45
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Something that goes beyond Just we happen to be in the same street or happen to go to the same school or work in the same place. That means that you've got to take yourself out of those structured environments and put yourself in an environment where you're going to be the stranger in the room.
00:12:05
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And that can be very uncomfortable. But what I think really helps with that is when people have something, an activity that they're particularly passionate about, um even if it's an an individual activity, like maybe running or something like that, that's usually done on your own. There are generally groups of people who do that. So if you find one of those groups and join that, then you already kind of have some things built in that you can talk about and share about and start developing those relationships and and find someone in that group. Oh, that person over there seems really interesting. You know, maybe I can invite them to to, you know, go out for coffee afterwards or or whatever and start deepening and broadening that relationship completely.
00:12:50
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from that activity. But when you start with something that you're already passionate about or already enjoy, that makes it much, much easier, I think, to build those relationships. Yes. You're reminding me as well that one of the things that people will do if they're trying to find some sort of social group or friendship group is put themselves in situations where people go to socialize.
00:13:14
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So they would go to a bar, a restaurant, a pub, those sorts of places as themselves, which are daunting places for anyone really to go into by themselves. But we don't generally go to nightclubs, bars, restaurants, pubs, those sorts of places to meet new people by ourselves.
00:13:36
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We go with our friends and then we meet other people as result. Other people, yeah You need to build the group of friends who you can then go to those places with. Very true. Because if you if you go by yourself, you may end up meeting people who aren't going to have a constructive, positive influence on your life. True.
00:13:57
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Very true. Because they haven't got the interest. And you'll end up with a social life that instead of revolving around something that is positive like a hobby or an interest or volunteering or supporting other people whatever it is you'll end up with a social life which may appear to be cool with a k type of thing but it will revolve around alcohol smoking drugs and perhaps liaisons with unsuitable people, shall we say. Right, right. Well, and what's interesting is there's actually been a lot of ah studies done around happiness. And what they have discovered is that when you pursue happiness directly, when I have this many friends, when I get that car, when I get that raise, whatever it is, it actually makes you less happy.
00:14:51
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But when you pursue things that you enjoy, things that are not directly you know heading for happiness, but particularly when you're helping other people, your happiness actually increases. So if you spend time volunteering or you know but participating in a hobby or anything like that, you're actually probably going to be happier overall.
00:15:20
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than you would if you spend all of your time, again, directly pursuing that thing that is supposed to make you happy. And I found that fascinating because there are, you know, culturally and in the media, there's so much push towards, you know, buy this, do this, that will make you happy. And it's simply not true. Possessions rarely make us happy.
00:15:42
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Correct. Spend a fortune on a toy for a three-year-old at Christmas. Watch them. Watch them open up the box, put the toy to one side, and then play with the box for the next two hours. Play in the box. know i actually used to give my nieces empty boxes for ah birthdays and Christmas and things. I would give them a box and some duct tape, and they would play for hours. They were quite happy. And then later I would give them the toy that came in the box. But, yeah, they loved that. What you're talking about there is that
00:16:15
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If you aim for products, purchases, and see those as a something that is going to make you happy and give you a social life, it's not going to work.
00:16:30
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No. It's almost like, well, you can't be one of the cool kids because you haven't got the right trainers. Well, wants to have up those trainers anyway? It's like, right what are you doing with the trainers?
00:16:41
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If all you're sitting all you're doing is sitting... drinking, smoking, but you're cool because you've got a particular pair of trainers on, then fine, I'll find someone else.
00:16:53
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You're using the trainers to run in, to work out and to do some sort of sport. Those the people that you need to aim
Scheduled Lives and Social Skills
00:17:00
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for. And i think we think I think at the moment we're jumping across generations. you We started with people preparing for retirement and leaving behind the social network that comes with work.
00:17:11
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We've gone to people that are leaving education behind, and the social network that comes with being in an educational process. And the situation is very much the same for regardless of what generation you're at.
00:17:24
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But I think the lesson is probably that it's never too early to start, is it? to Not too early to start building that social life, that social network, the range of activities.
00:17:39
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It is not. It is not. And I know, you know, at least for my experience here in America, what has happened for a lot of kids is their life has become overly scheduled.
00:17:56
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um as they're going through school. You know, you're going to go here before school, you go to school, and then you go to this activity and that activity, and then you come home and do your homework, whatever. It's all very scheduled. And so when they leave home for the first time, maybe here it's going to college, I think university and in the UK, it may be the first time that they have the freedom to do what they want, but they haven't had the practice on how to make friends.
Friendships Through Shared Interests
00:18:23
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And that's where it can become so important to to really choose and be deliberate about what you choose to get involved in as far as hobbies and and things like that. Because to your point, it's very easy to see what the world says is the right thing to do um when it's not. And to not do that, right? To to choose the things that you enjoy. Because ah i'm I'm also a nerd. I'm...
00:18:54
Speaker
very much into science fiction and I'm a gamer and I do things that generally are not associated with women and certainly not women of my age. And so doing that though has brought me in contact with other women who also do those things. And we have formed friendships and not all of them are local to me. And that has allowed me to form friendships across geographies, which is another thing that people don't necessarily think about these days, but can be very interesting to do form because of all of the technology today. Of course, you know you can pick up the phone, you can do a Zoom call, you can do whatever. In my case, it's gaming and I'm online with people. um But it's really been an extraordinary experience to get to know people in other countries and other places that I never would have had any contact with.
00:19:48
Speaker
But I do because they enjoy doing the same thing that I do. And so I encourage people to think hard about when they see a change coming. Okay, I'm going to go away to college or I'm going to go away to school or I'm going to change jobs or whatever it is to think really hard about what are the things that you want to carry with you from one place to another, the things that you love, the things that give you purpose.
00:20:17
Speaker
What are those things and how can you continue to be involved with them in a way that brings you into contact with people, new people, or keeps you in contact with the people you already have established relationships with?
00:20:32
Speaker
That's what Freshers' Week is for, finding all that about all the societies and clubs and the types of things that you can get involved in at the college or university. It's a great opportunity to explore life. Oh, yes. To it positively. Yes. It's a wonderful opportunity. But the thing is that that happens when you're going to college and university. But because of the Internet, you can also do exactly the same thing. You have a hobby.
00:20:58
Speaker
you're interested in something, it doesn't take very long before you can find a group somewhere on the internet that is interested in the same thing. You don't need to go into it 100%. You can operate around the edges of it until you feel comfortable and then be more involved with it and see what local groups there are as well. All sorts of different websites are set up to help you find the people who share the weird and wacky interests that you do as well.
00:21:28
Speaker
yeah it's
Online Platforms for Communities
00:21:30
Speaker
True, true. And I think that's particularly true in rural areas. I happen to live in a big city where there's all kinds of things, right? If I wanted to join a running group or painting group or whatever, right? it's It's a metropolitan area, so there's lots of stuff available. But I have friends who live not in a big city who are interested in some of the same things. And so they have been forced really to go online to find people that share those interests. So it's a tremendous tool that shouldn't be overlooked. But again, be careful out there online. Yes. On the subject of being careful, let's think for a moment about the person who has not done all of the things that we've just been talking about, has found themselves with a social life that is now with people who are not necessarily the most positive influences
Moving Away from Negative Influences
00:22:21
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on life. There is a lot of alcohol, a lot of tobacco, lot of
00:22:24
Speaker
drugs perhaps and casual relationships which they can now see that the the future is not that attractive given their social life and i suspect that that person is more likely to have as well has a social life that is more likely to have a negative impact on their physical health oh yes than the person who's gone off and found the things that are interesting for them and and motivates them and and fills time and enthusiastically. What sort of advice would you have for someone, regardless of their age, who finds themselves in that type of negative social situation?
00:23:07
Speaker
How can they get out of that and into something that is more positive? And change is always hard, no matter how much you want to do it. Change is always hard. So the first piece of advice I always give is start small. Because you want to do things that you're going to be able to stick with, right? So you don't want to just suddenly start ghosting everybody and ignoring everybody. And then you're home alone on Saturday night for six weeks in a row. And all of a sudden that doesn't look so bad to go out with them again, right? So start yeah small with small changes. And probably the first small change is to look around and see who else is in your life right now
00:23:50
Speaker
that you maybe don't have a ah an acquaintance something like that um that isn't part of that negative circle that you're in that you can start building a relationship with and reach out to them so you start with one person start with where you're at and identify it could be a relative it could be just an acquaintance a friend ah ah from work, you know whatever your is in your life. And start building that because as you start bringing more positive influences in, it will be easier to let go of the negative influences. So you start with one person and once you've maybe established that relationship, well, who else? Or who is that person brought into your life as a positive influence? And as you're bringing in
00:24:40
Speaker
Let go of the negative because now you have, and I'll just give you an an example. So I happen to be very active in my church, you know, and I have a friend who has some social anxiety and and really struggles with in-person events, but I have been able to bring her to my church to do some very small social events. And over time, she has been able to establish friendships there and has grown as a person and become less, you know, it's it's been easier for her on her own to go out and make friends in other places. So just because of that
00:25:17
Speaker
you know, me pulling her in a direction, she was able to expand her own abilities. Same thing, you have someone that pulls you into a positive direction, that will help you be better prepared to say no, when you need to say no to the people who are asking you to do the things you know you shouldn't be doing.
00:25:36
Speaker
You make it sound so simple, and I suppose in many ways it is. Well, it it sounds simple, but it's not. Yeah, we all know it's not. It takes time. You know, new relationships are not built in one experience. So it's OK, you know, you let's go out to coffee or let's hey, you like movies. Should we go see a movie or whatever? Right. But you got to keep at it. And that will slowly build a relationship. And maybe you discover they enjoy something they introduce you to that all of a sudden you're like, oh wow, that is so cool. I would love to do more of that. And again, that will naturally kind of pull you away from the people that you no longer want to associate as much with.
00:26:17
Speaker
It sounds simple. It isn't going to be simple. It's going to be know difficult because change, like you say, is never easy. But you have to keep the end in mind and take it at a time. Be persistent about it as well, I suppose, because there will be setbacks. But if you are...
00:26:39
Speaker
involved in social environment on a regular basis that is engage involves activities which you know are going to be detrimental to your physical health.
00:26:49
Speaker
They're probably also going to be detrimental to your mental health as well. And you owe it to yourself to take the steps to get yourself into a much better and more constructive situation.
Holistic Well-being Improvements
00:27:01
Speaker
And I think as well, once you've got that social life where you are involved with other people, you're probably going to be learning new things as well. Once you've ignited that spark of learning, that then gets transferred into so many other areas of your life and you start to see all sorts of better things happening, whether it's with your family, with your relatives, with your community, with work. You see much that will help you in so many different ways.
00:27:31
Speaker
It's very true. when i When I do talks, one of the things I highlight is the different areas of your life, the social, intellectual, and emotional, they all overlap. So if you are improving in one area, that's going to make everything better.
00:27:46
Speaker
There's just no way around it. And I include the physical in that as well. So if you are finding yourself learning new things or being intellectually stimulated, then that's going to come around and help you feel healthier. And it'll help you be more social as well because you're learning and you want to share or you're meeting new people who share that new interest. And so, yes, they're all interrelated. And it's really, really difficult to not improve everything when you improve one area.
00:28:15
Speaker
That's true. and Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed our conversation, learned a little bit more about this whole sort of area, and I do appreciate your time. it was well worth the wait. Oh, thank you. I enjoyed it as well.
00:28:28
Speaker
Great. would be really interested to know what people are doing to improve their social
Episode Conclusion and Engagement
00:28:36
Speaker
lives. So please, well, add in the comments.
00:28:39
Speaker
some short description about where you are and the sorts of things that you are doing to improve your social life and the impact that it is having on all the other areas of your life as well. It would be great. Thank you.
00:28:52
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director Abucida. And in this episode of Fit For My Age, I have been having a conversation with Dawn Marcotte, the author of Success Guaranteed.
00:29:03
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. I'm sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Fit For My Age as much as Dawn and i have enjoyed making it.
00:29:14
Speaker
So please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You'll probably also want to tell your friends, family and work colleagues about Fit For My Age as well.
00:29:29
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of Fit For My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.