The Importance of Relationships on Your Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health
Ah, relationships! They are the spice of life - and keep life spicy! No matter who you are, relationships impact every facet of our lives. From our significant others, our kids, our family of origin, and our friends, to our co-workers and people in our social spheres like places of worship, the gym, and the parents of our kids’ friends… life is full of relationships!
To be clear, we’re talking about the face-to-face variety of relationships here. Don’t get me wrong, social media is a great way to stay connected about the latest goings-on in life, a place to share birthday wishes and our favorite cat videos, but these electronic interactions simply don’t take the place of being in the same room with someone!
But, even though all of us have relationships in all areas of our lives, that does not mean that they are easy, or that they don’t pose significant challenges at times. And while the “easy” answer when relationships get hard is to bury our head in the sand, or perhaps cut the relationship off completely, there’s a reason that it’s beneficial for us to put time and effort into maintaining healthy relationships. In fact, most people don’t realize the impact of healthy relationships on our physical, mental, and emotional health!
These benefits include:
Help with Stress. Having healthy relationships helps to lower the stress hormone, cortisol.
Help Us Live Longer. The simple fact of lowering cortisol levels helps reduce inflammation in the body. And less inflammation helps us to live longer.
A Greater Sense of Purpose. Connection helps us to recognize that we are a sum of all of our parts, which helps with a greater sense of purpose and meaning for our lives.
Increased Confidence. Knowing that there is someone out there who believes in us, who is rooting for us, and who goes to bat for us when we need them to naturally increases our emotional confidence level.
Combat Anxiety + Depression. Much of the current research in the field of mental health is around the negative impact of our current “epidemic” of loneliness and isolation, which leads to an increase of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Healthy relationships not only reduce cortisol, but also allow for the release of positive hormones that help to reduce anxiety and depression.
Good stuff, right? Yay, relationships!
But, this doesn’t automatically help us know what to do when there’s a problem in one of our relationships. Most of us don’t have the manual that tells us how to build healthy relationships or what to do when there’s conflict. And we certainly aren’t away that there are “relationship muscles” that we can build to help us improve our already-good relationship.
That’s where Harper Therapy is here to help! Our skilled clinicians have high emotional intelligence that is essential to healthy relationships and we’ve got actionable tools that we can teach you to help. Check out our clinicians here or call 813-434-3639 to schedule your free phone consultation to share with you how we can help.
