Deal with compassion and social relationships first in any health and well-being strategy. This approach makes the biggest impact on people’s health and well-being, often proving more powerful than medication.
Actively cultivate and maintain good social relationships. Extensive evidence shows these relationships are more powerful than interventions like giving up smoking, drinking, diet, or exercise in helping you live longer, due to their embedded biochemical and biological benefits.
For healthcare professionals, routinely assess patients’ social relationships as part of standard clinical practice. Addressing these relationships can be more effective than most medicines, leading to transformational improvements in patient health and well-being.
If in a position to influence healthcare or community services, employ or train ‘health connectors’ who are skilled in motivational interviewing. These individuals can effectively connect people struggling with isolation or illness to relevant community resources, reducing the burden on medical services and improving well-being.
If you are feeling lonely or isolated, or know someone who is, actively seek out or recommend community groups and activities such as self-management groups, talking cafes, knitting groups, or walking groups. These connections foster friendships, can help regain health, and significantly improve happiness and social engagement.
Take steps to address and mitigate loneliness in your life and the lives of others. Loneliness has been shown to increase the chance of dying early by about 30%.
Consciously pay attention to compassion at all times and elevate it as a high value in your personal life, schools, workplaces, politics, and media. This has a profound impact on everything you do, including running profitable businesses and making long-term environmental decisions.
Actively choose to be compassionate in your daily life. This practice has a profound impact on everything you do, contributing directly to your personal health and happiness.
In all interactions, particularly as a healthcare professional, prioritize connecting with the person and ensuring they feel heard before offering education or advice. When people feel cared for and heard, they are more open to listening and adhering to guidance, leading to better outcomes and a more fulfilling experience for both parties.
Practice self-compassion to manage your life realistically and appreciate your own value. This prevents exhaustion from giving too much to others and enables you to be more effectively compassionate universally.
Reflect on the common lessons from people at the end of their lives, which often highlight the importance of good relationships, love, family, and a sense of satisfaction with life. This perspective can help you prioritize what truly matters and live a more peaceful, fulfilling life now.
Appreciate others for the qualities of their character, such as their love and kindness, rather than their achievements or possessions, and cultivate these qualities in yourself. This aligns with what people value most at the end of life and leads to a more meaningful existence.
Bring compassion into your decision-making process. This enables you to make sensible choices that are not solely based on short-term personal gain.
Understand and embrace compassion as an evolutionarily advantageous trait. The presence of oxytocin, the socializing hormone, throughout the animal kingdom suggests that humans survived through being compassionate and kind, rather than solely through ‘survival of the fittest’.
Develop and implement community-based compassionate programs. The Frome Project demonstrated that such initiatives can significantly reduce population emergency hospital admissions (by 30%) and improve quality of life.
For managing lifestyle-related conditions like diabetes, seek out or create community support groups. Doing things together, such as cooking or sharing tips, makes it easier to lead a healthier lifestyle and provides additional benefits from social connection, impacting biochemistry and physiology.
Engage in small, heartwarming conversations with people you encounter daily, such as at the shops or with a taxi driver. These seemingly minor moments have physical, biochemical, and hormonal components that sustain you and contribute to your overall well-being.
Create informal gathering spaces, such as ’talking cafes,’ where people can simply chat and connect without the pressure of joining a formal group. This provides an easy, low-barrier way to combat isolation and build rapport within a community.
If in a community leadership role, gather and make easily accessible information about local groups and activities, such as through a user-friendly web page. This enables individuals and medical practices to efficiently connect people to relevant community resources, especially those feeling isolated.
Train individuals within a community to become ‘community connectors’ who are knowledgeable about local resources and activities. These connectors facilitate compassionate conversations and connections, fostering a pervasive sense of belonging and support throughout the town.
Advocate for and use the term ‘compassionate communities’ when discussing community-based health interventions, rather than ‘social prescribing.’ This terminology better reflects the empowering nature of being connected to one’s community and avoids a paternalistic approach.
Actively concentrate on and enhance joy, love, well-being, compassion, and meaning in your life. This focus not only makes people feel better and more connected but also has a profound impact on health that can be greater than medication.
Reflect on how you feel after interactions where compassion was absent, such as arguments or negative online comments. This self-awareness highlights the negative and toxic impact of a lack of compassion on your personal well-being, even if you felt you were ‘right’.
In community engagement, focus on ‘what’s strong, not what’s wrong’ by building relationships and recognizing the inherent strengths within individuals and the community. This approach fosters warmth and enables collective problem-solving and transformation.
Engage in collective action and community building. Humans evolved in communities, and people working together through warm human relationships are the most powerful force for transformation, whether addressing financial, environmental, or social problems.
Ensure you balance your professional commitments with sufficient time for family. Many older professionals express regret at the end of their careers for having worked too hard and not spending enough time with loved ones.
Ensure that basic compassion is present in all your relationships. If a person you are interacting with doesn’t care for your well-being, the relationship will struggle to develop or last, as trust cannot be built without this fundamental element.
Devote time to appreciating the natural treasure of compassion you already possess, recognizing everyday acts like making a cup of tea, giving a lift, or chatting with people. This appreciation helps you live a happy, long life and reinforces your inherent gift for compassion.
Take small, simple steps to be more compassionate in your daily life. The speaker guarantees that once you start, you will never stop, as even minor acts of kindness have a lasting impact.
If you have an interest that nobody else is currently pursuing, find a friend to do it with. Doing things together makes a significant difference, fostering love, laughter, and friendship along the way.
Define compassion as recognizing a need in others and being motivated to do something to alleviate it. Act on this motivation to bring compassion into your life and the lives of others.
Practice kindness and compassion, even if initially motivated by the understanding that it is beneficial for you. While best without strings attached, this ‘selfish’ reason can be a valid starting point, aligning reasoning, emotion, and inspiration.
Engage with your neighbors by simple acts like looking over the garden fence and checking on them. This contributes to creating compassionate streets and neighborhoods, fostering a greater sense of community.
Actively look out for your neighbors and offer practical help, such as doing their shopping. This fosters kindness and compassion in everyday life, strengthening community bonds.
For health professionals, implement community-based approaches in your practice to rediscover the joy and love for your work. This enables you to address patients’ deeper problems and provide more holistic care, reducing feelings of emptiness and frustration.
Share this podcast episode with your family and friends. This act of kindness benefits both the sharer and the recipient, helping to spread kindness and positivity.
Consider reading the book “Feel Great, Lose Weight” for a compassionate approach to weight loss. The book aims to help readers be kinder and more compassionate to themselves by understanding their own patterns and behaviors better.