Pexels — Andrea Piacquadio

Build a Successful Support Team to Achieve Your Health Goals

How to support your own goals, create a helpful social/community support for yourself, and what a beneficial social support looks like.

What is Social Support?

Social support is characterized by the interactions an individual has with the people around them. This includes friends, coworkers, family members, partners, etc. These interactions help to shape personal health, habits and mindset. The amount of social interaction a person perceives for themselves can differ between types of personalities, however having quality supportive interactions is important.

Quality of social relationships is determined by the aspects of the relationship; positive interactions such as emotional support and the feeling of genuine care can help increase a persons overall wellbeing, while strained aspects of a relationship such as conflict and stress can deteriorate an individuals health both mentally and physiologically.

What Studies Say

Studies show that social relationships can have both short and long term health related effects. Throughout their lifetime, a person will have many types of social relationships that continue to emerge and shape their outlook, this accumulation can foster advantages or disadvantages to the individuals health.

Key Findings from Studies:

• “A prospective study in Alameda County showed that greater overall involvement with formal (e.g., religious organizations) and informal (e.g., friends and relatives) social ties was associated with more positive health behaviors over a ten-year period”.
• “Supportive interactions with others benefit immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular functions and reduce allostatic load, which reflects wear and tear on the body due, in part, to chronically overworked physiological systems engaged in stress responses” (McEwen 1998; Seeman et al. 2002; Uchino 2004).
• “Several recent review articles provide consistent and compelling evidence linking a low quantity or quality of social ties with a host of conditions, including development and progression of cardiovascular disease, recurrent myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, autonomic dysregulation, high blood pressure, cancer and delayed cancer recovery, and slower wound healing (Ertel, Glymour, and Berkman 2009; Everson-Rose and Lewis 2005; Robles and Kiecolt-Glaser 2003; Uchino 2006). Poor quality and low quantity of social ties have also been associated with inflammatory biomarkers and impaired immune function, factors associated with adverse health outcomes and mortality (Kiecolt-Glaser et al. 2002; Robles and Kiecolt-Glaser 2003)”.
• Overall, positive social support of high quality interactions enhances resilience to stress, therefore lowering health related physiological risk factors. In addition studies report that social support has indirect effects to enhance mental health as well as increase a sense of meaning and purpose in a persons life (Cohen 2004; Thoits 1995).
• Another key factor in determining efficacy of a persons social health is how that individual perceives the existence of their social support. One may have abundance of interactions, but if they do not feel fulfilled by these interactions they may experience feelings of lacking or loneliness. The amount of people in a persons life is not the biggest indicator of fulfillment, the quality of these interactions is more meaningful.
• “Social support provides physical and psychological advantages for people faced with stressful physical and psychosocial events, and is considered as a factor reducing the psychological distress when faced with stressful events”.
• “Personal control refers to individuals’ beliefs that they can control their life outcomes through their own actions. Social ties may enhance personal control (perhaps through social support), and, in turn, personal control is advantageous for health habits, mental health, and physical health (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Thoits 2006).”
• “Key research findings include: (1) social relationships have significant effects on health; (2) social relationships affect health through behavioral, psychosocial, and physiological pathways; (3) relationships have costs and benefits for health; (4) relationships shape health outcomes throughout the life course and have a cumulative impact on health over time; and (5) the costs and benefits of social relationships are not distributed equally in the population.”

Downsides of Social Interactions

Relationship stress also undermines a sense of personal control and mental health, both of which are, in turn, associated with poorer physical health

Unsupportive social ties may also present barriers to improving health behaviors and outcomes.

Overall Tips

• Evaluate how your social interactions feel. Are you feeling supported and fulfilled currently? If you feel something is lacking what might that be? The amount of interactions you are having or the quality of those interactions?
• If you feel your social group could be enhanced, look to meet people with similar values and goals as you. This can help to find common similarities as well as support your health goals.
• If you have a big social network and/or feeling its a bit lacking, try to express your common values with a few select people and shift the relationship to a more supportive or meaningful interaction. This could be as simple as spending some one on one time with someone and deepening the relationship to fit your current situation.
• Cultivate boundaries with people, this may be hard but learning where your boundaries are can strengthen a relationship as well as give yourself more autonomy. Not all boundaries keep people away, think of this more as an invitation to let those around you know how you would like to be treated.
• Reach out to a friend, this could be as simple as a weekly phone call or message. A great way to maintain connection with those who are important to you.
• Random acts of kindness with strangers in your community. A smile or kind word shared with those around you can make the world a brighter place and create a supportive network outside your immediate social circle.
• Explore expressing empathy and feelings to those important to you. Sometimes the best way to connect deeper with someone is showing them you care and allowing them to feel comfortable sharing the way they are feeling too. Relationships are built by an ebb and flow between people, treating others in a way how you would like to be treated can inspire an increased quality of the relationship.

For more about health topics, check out the Ate blog or youateapp on Medium.