Relationships

How to Maintain Social Connection in the Time of Coronavirus

By Krista Brie | Posted: August 06, 2020

To prevent the current health crisis from affecting even more lives and industries, people have been encouraged to practice social distancing and to stay at home as much as they can. While this can be effective—if partnered with proper hygiene measures like wearing a mask and frequent handwashing⁠—it can also cause feelings of loneliness and isolation. The lack of social connection affects a person’s mental well-being, and this is something that a University of Michigan study has found to be worse than obesity and even smoking.

With that being said, we’ve set out to find better ways to connect with other people safely—especially during these precarious times.

Play Video Games with Friends and Family

With friends and family, having to stick with texts and conversations on the phone can get old pretty fast. As barely anything interesting happens during quarantine, daily conversations can become repetitive and boring. To veer off the monotonous route, introduce a bit of competitiveness between you, your family, and your friends by connecting through video games. Joe Todd, a Recreation and Leisure Studies Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo specializing in relationship development, notes that video games provide a way to stay connected as we physically distance from each other.

One great example of this is Jackbox Games, which has many fun titles that can be played through teleconferencing apps like Zoom or Google Hangouts. If you want to explore the virtual outdoors, meeting up with friends over a Minecraft server could help you forget that there’s an ongoing health crisis—even if it’s just for a few hours.

Join Virtual Yoga Classes

As the world is thrown into uncertainty, more and more people are feeling anxious, stressed, and worried. In fact, Business Insider notes that the trauma from this global health predicament will cause a spike in addiction as people look to different substances to cope. That’s why people should look to healthier alternatives like yoga and meditation.

Yoga has the ability to ease your feelings of anxiety and stress, as the physical component of this ancient practice stimulates the brain’s production of dopamine, which is also known as the happy hormone. To add, the meditative exercises done during yoga can help you connect with other people in your virtual class—the collective yearning for inner peace can help everyone stay grounded and quash their worries. More importantly, yoga helps you forge a deeper connection with yourself—something that everyone needs to do during these unfortunate times. And the best part is: It can be done virtually!

To know more about the Sri Sri Yoga Foundation Program, join this online introductory yoga class for FREE.

Highlight Non-Verbal Cues

Vital aspects of communication may be lost as we continue to follow health protocols. Right now, social distancing and facial protection are being encouraged—gone are the days of being able to relay how you feel through touch and facial expressions. For example, we should now resist the urge to shake hands with acquaintances or people we meet in person. Physically touching another person is a potentially lethal act, so it is important you interact with them at a safe distance.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should completely ignore strangers, neighbors, or friends you encounter along the street. “People talk about elbow bumps and things like that,” explains Dr. Dustin York, director of Maryville University’s bachelors in the communications program. “But they don’t convey the same message and warmth and intimacy that would be conveyed by a handshake.” Instead, Dr. York suggests an alternative that’s a lot less silly but can be even more personal: placing your right hand over your heart as you make eye contact with the other person. This can help you express emotions beyond words, even while wearing masks, so we can convey a sense of solidarity with others in today’s unprecedented crisis—despite being physically apart.

Find Kinship in Shared Advocacies

Today’s social and political climate has pushed a lot of people to their breaking points. That’s why you’ll see a lot of movements stirring both in the streets and in the virtual world. If you are passionate about making a change and standing up for what you believe in, you can find and join various groups with the same advocacy as you on social media.

In fact, Pew Research reveals that 69% of Americans believe that making noise on social media gets politicians to listen, so joining an online movement can help highlight the flaws in our society, even if we’re all staying at home. From human rights movements to calls for better social or environmental policies, you can find kindred spirits whom you can make a very real human connection with online. Through this, you won’t feel as isolated and can spend your time on a cause that can help change society for the better.

Another way to find human connection and kindred spirits is to join a free breath and meditation online session with a live instructor called, Beyond Breath. You will learn a breathing technique, experience a guided meditation, and learn about the SKY Breath Meditation online program. Enhanced immunity and greater connections with others are possible with SKY!