Talking to friends even for a short time during the day can improve mental health. This thing has been revealed by a recent study. This study has shown the importance of mental and emotional connection in maintaining mental health. Apart from this, meeting friends once a day, joking or telling them how your day was, all these things can increase your happiness and help in reducing the level of stress. Apart from this, the risk of mental illness like depression and anxiety is also less. Many other studies have shown that social connections can improve one's mood and control emotions.
What did the study find?
900 people were included in this study. All these were students of five different universities and their social contacts, which were studied before, during, and after the pandemic lockdown. The purpose of the study was to understand the quality of communication in the context of relationships. All the people were asked to engage in one of seven communication behaviors during the day and then at night to report on stress, connection, anxiety, well-being, loneliness, and the quality of their day.
There were 7 communication behaviors-
Talk to someone
Care more
Hear
Value others and their opinions
Compliment each other
Talk sense
To joke
The study found that individually these behaviors had no significant effect on mental health.
Both quantity and quality are important
The study aims to understand the impact of both the quantity and quality of daily conversations. This showed that both the frequency of communication and its quality was equally important. Those who chose to have more quality conversations had better days. According to the lead author, if your friends listen more and care more, it can boost your mental health. The study found that in comparison to electronic or social media contact if you talk to your friend face to face, your mental health will be better.
