After a fairly relaxed summer, more and more places are bringing back tighter restrictions in response to rising COVID-19 cases, with some even returning to full or near-full lockdowns.
We all know that social distancing makes sense: the fewer people we meet (and the further away from them we stay), the less likely we are to get ill or to spread the virus. But sticking to social distancing is hard. And the longer we do it, the harder it seems to get.
Recent findings from social neuroscience may offer some insights on how we can nonetheless stay socially connected. Hopefully, this will help us cope better – if only just a little.
Being socially connected to others makes us perasaan safe and cared for, and this feeling affects our bodi and brain. We worry less about potential dangers and perasaan less stressed, sleep better, have lower heart rate and blood pressure, our baseline energy requirement is lower, and our immune sistem works more efficiently. We are also less prone to depression.
This is because when calculating the available cognitive and bodily sumber, our brain naturally takes our nearest social surroundings – the people we interact with – into akun. It treats social and metabolic sumber almost interchangeably. If we can count on other people to suport us in times of need, our own sumber can either be preserved or dedicated to other issues, as if they were literally increased.
Recent social neuroscience findings suggest that these beneficial effects have a lot to do with becoming synchronised with others, by paying attention to or thinking about the same thing at the same time and to have the ability to react to one another instantly.
We usually do this through physical touch, eye kontak, talking to each other, share our emotions, and following each other's behaviour – such as bodily gestures. We call this bio-behavioural synchrony.
There is growing evidence that being in synchrony with others increases cooperation, social connection and positive thoughts about others, and also lifts our spirits. It can also ease our pain, reduce stress and boost our resilience – our ability to stay positive and healthy despite facing adversity.
This means we should embrace virtual interaction for our work meetings, quick chats and socially distanced workouts, quizzes or movie nights. It won't be the same as before, but we can still get some of this feeling of synchrony with others that is so important for us.
