The Healing Power of Community
March 21, 2022
I’m a huge fan of Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Podcast, ‘Feel Better, Live More’. It often resonates deeply with me, and our sense of values as a practice. Each episode brings inspiring ideas about health and wellbeing, and the episode ‘The Healing Power of Community’ is an amazing collection of clips from his Podcast about the importance of Community. So many of our projects are for community led housing clients seeking to build more than just homes - they want to make places which engender a deeper sense of belonging, meaning, and connection. These are all the qualities of great projects, which we aspire to deliver in order to work towards designing better futures together. The text below describes the podcast, which I highly recommend. Sam.
“Humans are not designed to be alone. We’ve evolved to live our lives as individual members of a large supportive group. Back when the human brain was doing much of its evolution, we hunted together, we ate together and we sat around a campfire in the evenings and talked together, swapping stories, songs and smiles. We’re designed to survive and thrive by being connected to one another. This is why we feel joyful and safe when we‘re getting along well with the people we share our lives with. But our modern, busy, disconnected lives can do great damage to these connections and our health.
A rising number of us are suffering from loneliness and this is not only affecting our mental health, but also our physical health. In fact, high social stress is an even bigger risk factor for dying from chronic disease than physical inactivity, alcohol intake and smoking put together! The good news is though, there is plenty we can do to build new connections and nurture the important relationships in our lives.
Research has shown time and time again, that by giving to others and to our community, we can increase our own happiness, as well as the happiness of others. In today’s episode, you will hear some heart-warming stories and uplifting advice about the healing power of community from some of my former guests including: Gabor Mate, Johann Hari, Dan Buettner, Tommy Wood, Laurie Santos, Julian Abel, Pippa Grange, The Happy Pear, Kelly McGonigal and John McAvoy.”
