The Art and Science of Connection Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier

She's the best-selling author of The Art and Science of Connection, Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier.

So social health is the dimension of your overall health and well-being that comes from connection.

So if you think about it at the most basic level, physical health is about your body. Mental health is about your mind. And social health in contrast is about your relationships.

But oftentimes, connection gets lost in the conversation on mental health. We think that spending time with loved ones is something that improves our mood without necessarily recognizing that it does a lot more than that. It actually influences our risk for things like heart disease and dementia and diabetes. And at the extreme end, it influences how long we live.

you said something, can I remember the exact words, but you said social health is your connection, your relationships is as important as something like physical exercise. But couldn't you argue that it's more important?

I think you could argue that connection is more important than any of these other health behaviors. But I take a bit more of a modest approach in trying to help people understand that we already know that it's important to be physically and mentally healthy. Social health is on par with those aspects of our overall well being.

So social health is the dimension of your overall health and well-being that comes from connection.

But oftentimes, connection gets lost in the conversation on mental health. We think that spending time with loved ones is something that improves our mood without necessarily recognizing that it does a lot more than that.

And so thinking about social health separately from physical and mental health is a really useful way of understanding that we need to prioritize the actions that can help make us socially healthy, just like we prioritize behaviors to be physically and mentally healthy.

So if you think about physical fitness, it's exercising your physical muscles as a means to improve your physical health. And so in that same way, social fitness is about exercising your social muscles to improve your social health.

So literally just putting it on your calendar at 2 p.m. every day, send a text message or an email to someone saying, hey, I'm thinking about you or expressing gratitude for something they've done recently or something you appreciate about them.

Kelsey, you have a new book out, The Art and Science of Connection. Want to talk a little bit about why you wrote this book and what the goal of the book is?

What I found missing from the conversation is this idea of social health... when we connect meaningfully that has health benefits. That helps us live longer.

I wasn't cognizant of it. I wasn't being strategic like your book, The Art and Science of Connection is helping us to do.

The art and science of connection. That's for me. I need to get this book.

The book is available anywhere books are sold. So go to your local independent bookstore, go online. You can get it on Amazon anywhere you want.