Have you noticed the topic of every single American high school movie?
The new kid on the block trying to hang out with the cool squad or the socially-impaired in love with the popular one, who reciprocates secretly but can't afford losing popularity. Movies painted the the cool squads and nerds, songs played "all the other kids with the pumped up kicks" and it's all about one thing: belonging.
From cave men to Mean Girls, belonging seems to be a big deal.
Just like an addictive substance, we crave for belonging. Without it, we feel lost. In a way, it is a result of a chemical cocktail in our bodies. Belonging to a community activates some “feel good” hormones in our bodies which have positive implications in longevity. The absence of it also generates an excess of hormones which make us feel "stressed".
In the next 5 minutes you will understand why. We will go back in time to explore the foundations of communities, which will explain why we do the things we do. It will make the following chapters make more sense.
It will allow us to build communities over rock solid foundations, not on desperate ads; because it is about understanding that you are responsible for making people feel better.
Let's start exploring.
1. Back to The Savanna: Staying Alive
The Human design for Survival
"Should I fight this tiger with my bare hands?"
I'm positive that the first humans who answered "yes" to this question are not our ancestors.
We are engineered to "live long and prosper". Obviously, living comes first, otherwise, you can't prosper. Such a basic principle has deep implications in our lives.
First, let's talk about the individual features we have to stay alive. Further, we will jump into the technologies we created to keep us safe and sound.
Our "human Operational System" (let's call it hOS S, for Sapiens) has built-in mechanisms to make us think fast (instinctive) or slow (calculated). Psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls these System 1 and System 2 in his book: "Thinking, Fast and Slow". He explains we often make overly-confident decisions lead by System 1, which represents an impressionist, fast and dirty draft of the world, primarily designed for survival.
If scrutinized, our decisions would be deemed irrational, even though it was seemingly motivated by facts and logic. Kahneman's System 1 can be related to our Limbic System (or Lizard Brain), as painted by author Daniel Goleman in his book "Emotional Intelligence".
Both authors would agree that most of what we considered a threat, today, is an usual response of our brain based on the life we lived thousands of years ago, in jungle (or savanna). Simply put by this Huffington Post article: "when you see your boss’s name in your inbox late at night, your body reacts like there’s a lion on the loose".
Workplace stress, called "the health epidemic of the 21st Century", is nothing but having our "fight or flight" mode continuously activated.
Note: some people argue that stress enhances creativity, which they justify on examples such as the intense technological revolution that followed World War I and other historic episodes. This is true to a certain extent, but it depends on many variables We will explore it further, on this upcoming article.
You may not care about what all those Daniels (Goleman and Kahneman) said, but you don't wanna be that stressful workplace which gets people to work hard, but without consistency. Eventually people crash, quit or take a long sick leave.
When you do not feel safe, your hOS S (last update I know of was 30,000 years ago) immediately sends chemical messengers (aka neurotransmitters) to shoot adrenaline, a hormone which should advertise like Nike: "Just Do It" (when it means fight or flight).
It also releases cortisol, the misunderstood genius who became the "stress hormone", even though it's function is to control blood sugar levels, regulate metabolism, help reduce inflammation, and assist with memory formulation. When you're in good mood, cortisol is a great guy! But when we feel continuously under threat, cortisol stresses you out. After all, it's a chemical and it has collateral effects. Too much cortisol can do all the opposite of what it is originally set up to. It "suppress the immune system, increase blood pressure and sugar, decrease libido, produce acne, contribute to obesity and more" (same article).
"Live long and prosper". Captain Spock. Credit: startrek.com
To the point: stress is essential to survival, but having it all the time can be harmful.
Can we have a better system to "live long and prosper" rather than shooting stress right on to our veins all the time?
Our intuitive System 1 imagined a better way to stay safe, which feels better than flooding your body with cortisol: belonging. Our ingenious System 2 agreed and worked hard on ways to make it happen, from creating language to complex organizational structures.
Let's take a look at it.
2. The Invention of Communities
COMMUNITIES: KEEPING YOUS SAFE SINCE 2 MILLION Years AGo
Here's to the lazy ones: we could replace this whole article with a Socratic syllogism, caveman style:
Belonging feels safe;
Safe is good;
Belonging is good.
Make people feel safe, #boom, done deal. But wait... There's more to it.
Communities are a technology from nearly 2 million years ago (built on hOS E, standing for hOS Erectus), built to keep us safe.
Picture our ancestors: those tiny, naked, clawless creatures who stood no chance against hideous beasts or harsh weathers.
They gathered to stay warm and developed complex skills which enabled us to build larger groups, better suited to achieve great things, from killing wild animals to taking care of home and - eventually - cultivating edible grains. Together, they could feed and protect their offspring from wild predators.
Maybe there was an uncle called O'Joe (most likely, his real name was a snarl I can't pronounce) who was good with tools, while Auntie Ann (probably her name) knew how to discern edible from poisonous roots. Barney invented wheels, Betty built a school and Pebbles became an awarded cave-wall painter.
They lived longer and prospered because of communities.
Together, they could do better, beyond mere survival. If you are alive today it is because your ancestors decided to belong and you carry those genes. Most likely, those who opted for a hermit life didn’t spread their genes too far.
Belonging is not something that merely feels good. We are hard-wired to connect.
Communities enabled us to do excel as a species. It allowed us to perform complex creative work. Today, we have created a context where we can study the atomic structure for 20 years in a laboratory guarded by safe walls. I wouldn’t be sipping tea and writing this if I felt like "I'm vulnerable to a bear attack at any time!". If that was the case, I guess you wouldn’t be reading it either.
Overall, belonging feels good because it tells our bodies to run lower on cortisol, reducing the sensation of stress and anxiety. It feels like someone got your back, turn of the 'flight or flight' mode.
But it also has “collateral effects", as it releases just another set of chemicals.
Closeness to other humans can generate some “feel-good” hormones such as oxytocin. Released by human touch and famous as the "Cuddle Hormone", Oxytocin is responsible for trust-building. But don't get fooled: a mere high-five could be enough to start building trust bonds amongst people. "Beware who you high five with" grandma would say (I made this up).
Let's take a look into the next chapter.
3. The Secret: How to Live Long
Drop the paleo, gluten-free and vegan diets altogether
Psychologist Susan Pinker started her a widely watched TED talk with a teaser:
“In the developed world, everywhere, women live an average of six to eight years longer than men do. Six to eight years longer.”
Why is it so? Before we start, I’ll break it to you: having over-priced kale smoothies and chia seed bowls have little impact to longevity.
Susan Pinker presents the secret to longevity at TED2017
Pinker decided to explore the secret to longevity.
Curiosity took her to Sardinia, an Italian island where both men and women live remarkably longer: there have 10 times as many centenarians as in North America.
She researched the habits of the place, disregarding genetic profile (which only accounts for 25% of their longevity).
Moving on, she compared her results to another study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, from Brigham Young University, who analyzed thousands of middle-aged people taking note of multiple aspects of their lifestyle, coming back seven years later to see who was still alive.
There was a pattern to those who lived longer and it was unexpected: social integration.
Belonging to a community beyond your closest family and friends has a staggering positive impact to longevity, nearly over 30% the other factors (including vast healthcare). That means talking to your neighbor, greeting the staff at your local groceries store or having a enjoying a conversation your co-workers.... Community is everyone around you: your city, neighborhood, work, routine, etc.
I've made a summary of what Pinker's top10 Factors for Longevity, which you can see below (or watch her talk):
And The Winner is...
From #10 to #6 position we have overall life quality, including clean air, healthcare and various millennial stuff made it to the Top 10! Let’s cheer with an açaí smoothie (make sure to add some chia seeds and goji berries to it);
Starring on #5, Flu Vaccine shows to be more relevant than all the above. Go check your vaccination card before that smoothie;
Now we’re headed to our Top Winners! Put your hands to get her to:
2nd runner up: quit smoking, with a staggering effect in your health.
1st runner up: running close to the winner, is “Close Relationships”: your family and closest ties (people you call when you have some real sh*t going on);
And the winner is: Social Integration (aka belonging). Ta-da!
I took the freedom to interpret her graph on my own. Click here to see the original, presented by Pinker.
OK. Belonging makes us feel safe and live longer. What explains that?
Pinker explains that “interaction generates some feel-good hormones” which may reduce our cortisol levels and impact our overall health. That reminds us of the question she placed in the start: why do women in North America live longer than men? She explains "women are more likely to prioritize and groom their face-to-face relationships over their lifespans", and she proceeds adding up data from Anthropologist Joan Silk's, whose work shows that "female baboons who have a core of female friends show lower levels of stress via their cortisol levels, they live longer and they have more surviving offspring". Note to self: have at least 3 great friends!
Inspired by a Darwinistic worldview, this data allows us assume that individuals who had less cortisol shots on a daily basis had more chances to survive, bear kids and so on. Feeling good is just a sign in the right direction. But it's lest risky to assume that feeling safe make us feel good. Longevity is a consequence of
I'll close this part with a quote from Susan Pinker:
"It's a biological imperative to know we belong (...). Building in-person interaction into our cities, into our workplaces, into our agendas bolsters the immune system, sends feel-good hormones surging through the bloodstream and brain and helps us live longer. I call this building your village, and building it and sustaining it is a matter of life and death."
Mic drop.
4. All The Lonely People, Where Do They All Come From?
Belonging matters, as it can make us live a happy and healthy life. And we need it now, more than ever, because we’re getting sick from loneliness. Literally sick. Try searching “loneliness epidemic” on Google.
Being mobile and connected, we no longer need to belong where we came from.
While we are free to belong anywhere, loneliness has become an epidemic.
If belonging boosts “feel-good” hormones in our system to make us feel good, the opposite is also true.
Headlines from several publications reinforce the impact of loneliness in our generation. Tip: search “loneliness epidemic” on Google.
On her book “The Village Effect”, Susan Pinker mentions a research on social isolation run by John Cacioppo, explaining that “... loneliness drives up the cortisol and blood pressure levels that damage the internal organs in both sexes, and at all ages and stages of adult life.”
Cutting the long story short: the world is changing fast, but our bodies are a technology from thousands of years ago, a technology which still relies on mechanisms such as social integration to survive (and thrive).
Offline meetings still matter.
A study by Elizabeth Redcay, from the University of Maryland, found that live partner interactions show higher engagement of brain areas that are associated with attention, social intelligence and emotional reward.
Back to Susan Pinker, who observed the research above, “simply making eye contact with somebody, shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust and it lowers your cortisol levels.”
No big news: we gotta get off these screens and high-five some people. Come on, go give someone a hug. Now.
You’ll thank me 50 years from now.
Conclusion
The world needs new communities which better represent us, people who’ve gained freedom, but lost their original reasons to belong. We need better communities which allow us to trust each other, feel safe and thrive.
Put it this way: while bringing people together, you are contributing to a better world, by making people feel safer and, consequently, healthier. You may be even reducing State’s costs with social security, while less lonely people are less likely to develop stress-related diseases and more likely to have a faster recovery in general. Don’t believe it? Go read “The Village Effect” by Susan Pinker to understand why did the UK start a “Ministry for Loneliness”.
We also need to embrace diversity: for, when we’re free to belong, geographic location and ethnicity no longer matter. Besides, a study by McKinsey proves that more diverse companies make better decisions: the outcome is close to a 15% increase in financial results (read it here)”
We need better communities which embrace the power of diversity into building more abundance-minded contexts, meaning spaces where individuals are empowered to “live long and prospered”. Contexts where people feel safe and have the chance to become the best version of themselves.
These are the communities we’re talking about: diverse, abundance-minded, grassroots and, of course, authentic.
We are going to talk about all of these in detail.
Talk soon!