An essential aspect of creating an Integrative Health plan is to focus on what really matters.  Equally important is to ask a person, “Who really matters?”  Family, Friends, & Co-Workers focuses on all the ways a person might answer this important question. This overview, which builds on the materials featured in Chapter 10 of the Passport to Whole Health, reviews research related to relationships and health and highlights some ways that people can focus on this essential aspect of well-being.

Key Points

• While focusing on relationships may feel intimidating to some, it is vitally important.  Decreased loneliness correlates with increased health, and people do better with many health problems if they have people who can support them.
• Unfortunately, the average number of people a person is connected to has been decreasing in recent decades.
• There are many forms of social support, such as financial support, mentoring, and emotional support. All of them are important.
• Relationships affect us at the level of our physiology, as studies linking relationships and mirror neuron activity, oxytocin levels, and inflammatory markers have shown.
• Therapeutic relationships between clinicians and patient have a significant impact on outcomes.
• Examples of ways to enhance connections include practicing compassion, getting support from social workers, volunteering, joining support groups, and becoming more involved in one’s community.

Meet the Patient: Michelle

Replace ‘I’ with ‘We’ and illness becomes wellness.

—Swami Satchidananda

Michelle is a 70-year-old who, until last year, worked ever since graduating from high school. She was adopted and did not have strong relationships with her adoptive parents.

Michelle married her high school sweetheart, and they had a daughter when they were 19 years old. She felt a strong sense of responsibility for her new family and, because her husband was on disability due to chronic back pain, she focused on being a good provider. She worked as a custodian for 12 years before getting a diploma in Business Management at the community college in her hometown. She retired from a management position at a car dealership in 2019. Michelle’s husband died five years ago. Her daughter, Joan, is now in her 50’s. Joan is married with two teenaged children and lives on the other side of the country.