Wellbeing Relationships

The nature and quality of our relationships with family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours and the community impacts on other dimensions of wellbeing, including sleep, diet, mood, attitude and decision making.  Spending time with others, sharing confidences, helping and being supported by others provides us with a sense of identity and purpose.

Kindness to oneself and to others is a very important factor in developing and maintaining positive relationships. Honest and accurate two-way feedback is crucial in any relationship requiring trust.

Rating and Self-Assessment 

If you ranked your coping as GOOD then this section should help you maintain that. If you rated it as FAIR or POOR then this section should help you improve the situation.

Impacts

Social wellbeing impacts on the other dimensions of our wellbeing, including sleep, diet, mood, attitude and decision making.  Failing to manage your social relationships may result in the following negative impacts on you or your wellbeing in the short term. There are long term impacts in all these areas, but these are beyond the scope of this document.

What You Can Do

There are  simple actions you can take that, if used regularly, can improve the quality of your relationships, and as a consequence, improve mood and resilience to stress.

• Be kind to yourself and then those around you.
• Decide which relationships in your life are most important to you, list them in order, and remind yourself often.
• Discuss your assessment with the other person, in particular the relationships of highest importance to you. Be honest and don’t just talk, listen.

• Plan to invest quality time in those relationships important to you.

• In your own relationships, honestly assess their quality, your role and responsibilities.

• Make a shared social activity of cooking and eating.

• Spend time with friends and family – talk, listen, laugh, sing, dance, take exercise, play games, watch movies together.

• If possible, turn off your phone and other devices in the company of friends and family.

• Talk to your neighbours (NB appropriate physical distancing).

• Provide help or do favours for others (family, neighbours, colleagues, community).

• Consider volunteering with a charity or community group.

• Engage in positive two way communications with others.

• Consider involving others in physical activities.

• Listen to colleagues, talk, learn from them, offer help, and let them help you.