How to Find Needy Families in Your Community

No one was answering the phone. I tapped my pencil impatiently, willing someone to pick it up. Instead, a recorded vocalism informed me that I could get out my message at the beep—or dial 0-3 and someone would respond. I sighed. I really needed to talk to someone in my office earlier 5. But connecting to a live torso is a lot harder than it used to be—and non only at the office.

Certain, Sheri the secretary has been replaced by voice mail. But Mona the teller has also given style to an ATM, Joey the pump jockey has been replaced by a credit card-activated gas pump, and Thelma the telephone operator has been bounced in favor of binary code. Fifty-fifty recreational shopping—that aboriginal bonding ritual of female connectedness—has been replaced by ordering stuff online.

Most of the fourth dimension, swapping human contacts for electronic ones looks every bit though it's saving us time, coin, and aggravation. But it's occurring at a fourth dimension in which our civilization itself is asunder. Divorce is common, chore-jumping a way of life, corporate transfers the price of upward mobility, and potent community and religious institutions likewise often a thing of the past. The result is an epidemic of isolation. And the cost may be higher than nigh of us think. Studies show that the fewer human connections we have at home, at work, and in the community, the more likely nosotros are to get sick, flood our brains with anxiety-causing chemicals, and dice prematurely.

More from Prevention: viii Friends Every Adult female Needs

The good news is that those same studies also show that the more homo connections nosotros have, the more likely we are to live long and prosper.

"Connectedness is as much a protective gene—probably more—than lowering your blood pressure, losing weight, quitting smoking, or wearing your seat belt," says psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell, Md, instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Connect: 12 Vital Ties That Open Your Center, Lengthen Your Life, and Deepen Your Soul. "It'south the unacknowledged key to emotional and concrete health—and that's medical fact."

"You lot don't have to have a multitude of friends or be a gregarious, back-slapping kind of person to lead a connected life," says Dr. Hallowell. Nor practise you have to surrender vocalisation postal service, east-mail, or whatsoever other electronic conveniences. What you do need to do is develop close relationships—at home, in the community, and on the job. Here'south how to start:

Make your favorite connections. "Think of all the millions of ways to connect, and so call back of the ones you similar all-time, and brand them a habit," says Dr. Hallowell. "Eat dinner with your family, keep upwards with friends, attend meetings of organizations you believe in, read aloud to your child, visit grandma and/or granddad, get to metropolis hall and find out what'due south going on, walk in the park." Keep your connections simple and convenient.

"Do luncheon" regularly.Structure connections into your life on a regular basis, urges Dr. Hallowell. We oft hear it said that meaningful connections between people should be spontaneous, simply it just doesn't work that style. "Instead, our good intentions plough into, 'Well, let's do lunch erstwhile,' " says Dr. Hallowell. "The speed of modern life just picks you upwards and carries y'all away. And all the expert feelings of the moment are lost." Schedule a lunch with your best friend every month, and brand the last Tuesday of the month "go shopping with Aunt Lila" twenty-four hour period.

Ditch the bloodsuckers. The only way to brand room for meaningful relationships is to get rid of the connections that aren't rewarding for yous, says Dr. Hallowell. Everyone knows someone who drains their free energy and saps their strength. Cull not to allow them practice it.

Renew your religion. Going to church building or synagogue is a great mode to go far touch with something greater than yourself and structure spiritual connections into your life, says Dr. Hallowell. And yous don't accept to be religious to benefit from churchgoing, he says. "Even if you don't have a lot of organized religion, even if yous're sort of wishy-washy about information technology, just sitting in church building and thinking big thoughts for an hour a week is adept for y'all. In that location are even studies now that show that people who practise that alive longer."

More from Prevention: 20 Means To Get More Pleasance In Your Life

Brand adept use of technology. With families in a abiding state of flux these days, we tend to lose rail of one some other except at holidays. Withal holidays are a pretty stressful time to reconnect, says Dr. Hallowell. So take a few minutes each month to "reach out and touch" relatives scattered around the land. What are your twin cousins in South Carolina upwards to this week? How'southward your elderly aunt'south arthritis? Pick up the telephone. At less than x cents a infinitesimal, it's a inexpensive fashion to connect. You tin can also write or electronic mail. There'due south nothing more cheery than hearing "Y'all've got postal service!" when you log on.

Make peace with the family jerk.There'south one in every family—the jerk who, a zillion years ago, either...

• borrowed money and didn't repay it
• cheated on your cousin
• didn't help when your parents were old and bilious
• called you a liar
• called your married man a liar

Turn your workplace into a community.Goose egg can reduce stress at work as well as a feeling of camaraderie. Think of ways to bring your coworkers together—and so take the initiative, and make it happen. Roberta, the office manager at ane disconnected office where I worked, once bought three half-gallons of low-fat ice cream and frozen yogurt, rounded upward some plastic spoons, paper cups, and napkins, dumped them in the office conference surface area, then put out the give-and-take on office email: An water ice-cream social is taking place in 5 minutes—no accept-outs immune. Everybody came. And everybody connected. In fact, Roberta's ploy to connect her coworkers worked then well that ice-cream socials became a visitor tradition.

Simply exercise it."Clomp right in, and open the door," says Dr. Hallowell. "If you lot think almost it besides much, you'll put it off for another 5 years. So selection up the telephone, write a letter, go meet him. Whatever it takes, just exercise it."

Become to know your ancestors. Visiting the cemetery where your beloved relatives are buried—especially with your children-can connect yous both to the by and with your family today. If you have some spare time and a estimator, you tin can start a genealogical search for your ancestors. A friend of mine did that and increased her family circle; she found an uncle and cousins she didn't know she had, and they've all go very close.

Honor family rituals.Lord's day afternoon picnics, Fourth of July barbecues, lakeside campsite outs, and coming-of-age blowouts are all important parts of edifice family connections. Motion heaven and earth to attend them—and brand certain your kids do, too.

Pet your pet. It'southward about impossible to stay disconnected when animals are around. People who have pets feel meliorate and live longer, says Dr. Hallowell. And pets are particularly skilful for people who work at domicile and are less likely to connect with humans on a daily ground. (Encounter more ways pets keep you healthy and happy.)

Know thy neighbors. "Take them over often enough so you really connect," says Dr. Hallowell. How practice you lot know if y'all've established a connection? "A good exam is to enquire yourself, `Exercise I trust them plenty to leave my firm keys with them when my family unit goes away on vacation?' " If the answer is no, information technology may be time to schedule a game of over-the-debate volleyball—or, at the very least, invite them to dinner.

Talk to older people. Older folks are natural historians, says Dr. Hallowell. Become them talking, and you'll be surprised at how much you'll larn. Start with elderly relatives. If possible, record their reminiscences and transcribe them into a volume yous can share with other family unit members. Or just wander effectually a customs park, or lean against the debate at your local ballpark. Sooner or afterwards, one or two older folks volition come to sit on a demote. All y'all have to do is comment almost the atmospheric condition—then sit dorsum, and allow them connect y'all to your customs's past.

Smile in the elevator. "Have trivial contact seriously," says Dr. Hallowell. Moving ridge at neighbors you haven't met, stop to exchange a couple of words with someone at the part watercooler, ask the cafeteria worker where she went on holiday. A friend of mine used to wait until the elevator door was closed, and then turn to his fellow travelers and say, "I guess you lot're wondering why I called you all here today." He got some foreign stares—and more than than a few laughs. Only he made connections!"

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