What Are Personal Relationships?

Personal relationships are those close connections we have with people, it is formed by our emotional bonds and interactions. It is bonding with people based on our mutual experiences. It could be with family members, friends, partnerships like marriage (close relationships built on affection).

We ought to pay more attention to the quality of our relationships, rather than the number of relationships we are involved in.

Researchers say, Relationships are important to our health and wellbeing.

What Are Healthy Relationships?

“Healthy relationships enable us to be who we are,” They nurture us and they help us grow. They help us become better people. “Healthy Relationships can help reduce stress and have been linked to overall improved health.

Researchers have even shown that people with healthy social relationships have a 50% greater likelihood of survival after a major illness.

Relationships could be challenging, sometimes exhausting at best. However, people with poor relationships are more likely to suffer from depression and a host of other ailments.

Loneliness VS Healthy Relationships?

Loneliness is powerful enough to weaken our immune system.

As our relationships are continually evolving, to fully enjoy and benefit from them, we need the appropriate skills, information, inspiration, practice, and social support.

How Personal Relationships Affect One’s State of Mind, Health & Lifestyle

Why do we seek out relationships?

Relationships – whether social or intimate – make people happier and contribute to joy in our lives. They constitute a vital part of wellbeing.  We are very social creatures.

As human beings, there is a real need for touch and connection. Connecting can be scary, but it’s how we bond with one another.

In adulthood, we often find that connection through intimate body-to-body contact, or sex.

Social interaction can cut the risk of mortality and developing certain diseases, it can also help individuals recover quickly from ill health.

However, socializing can be a daunting prospect for those struggling with health challenges, but it is vital that when going through any health challenge people do not become withdrawn as that could compound their problems.

While relationships can be a source of strength, they can also be extremely damaging if a person is manipulated and made to feel trapped.

Healthy relationships are extremely important for one's well-being both physically and emotionally, such relationships help validate one’s sense of self, self-esteem and self-confidence.

The commonest ways in which a person's mental health can be damaged by unhealthy relationships are:

• intimidation

• bullying

• coercion

Such pressures can lead to physical disorders as extreme as heart disease, psychological disorders including depression and drug addiction.

When people in close relationships particularly couples are in a constant state of conflict, it is detrimental to their health and wellbeing. Their blood pressure rises, and they suffer emotionally.

As your physical and mental health deteriorates, so does your sexual health. It’s really important in any relationship to understand your significant other’s point of view.

It’s not easy to pay attention or to listen attentively but understanding that you both have a perspective or point of view, and that there is no “right answer” to a conflict is important.

It is important to learn the art of compromise. As one gets older, one must learn to nurture close relationships.

One of the ways to nurture healthy relationships is to practice gratitude.

Relationships are hard work. You need to invest time in them. Try to spend time together.

Accept one another, practice forgiveness and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

We work so hard to protect ourselves from hurt feelings but opening up to one another is key to developing a deep and intimate relationship.

Your mental health and personal well being are tied up in the quality of your personal relationships.

The more closely you are connected to the people you love, the happier you feel, with a great deal of personal satisfaction.

These important relationships not only include family and personal friends but also the wider groups and communities we belong to.

Forming connections and a sense of community with work colleagues, neighbors and the various groups that make up our identity (such as sports, hobbies, religious and community groups), all contribute to our well-being. Not only does the degree of closeness of our relationship matter, but also the quality of the relationship has a powerful influence on our health, whereas, negative relationships can often create toxic situations involving conflict and stress.

Stress is an important factor when it comes to our physical and mental well-being as it not only triggers responses in our nervous system, but it also influences our ability to cope with negative life events.

We often experience it as sleep loss and an increase in health damaging behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol abuse, which makes it even more difficult to nurture and grow positive and healthy relationships in our lives.

Good connections can generally improve our health and increase longevity.

Why Personal Relationships Are Important

We are social by nature. We not only crave interactions, but we require them. That’s what makes positive social interactions an integral element of our overall wellbeing.

If we don’t have strong relationships in our lives, our ability to thrive is limited. We more often than not let it drop down on our list of priorities, we fail to leave adequate time to work on developing and maintaining these social ties.

Healthy relationships can impact us mentally and physically. They can help us live longer, manage stress, and become healthier.

Healthy relationships are a vital component of our health and wellbeing, there is indeed compelling evidence that strong relationships contribute to a long, healthy, and happy life.

Conversely, the health risks from being alone or isolated are said to be comparable to the risks associated with cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, and obesity.

Healthy Personal Relationships Can Help You:

• Live longer

When you have satisfying relationships with family, friends, and your community you are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer. Conversely, lack of social ties is associated with depression and later-life cognitive decline, as well as increased mortality.

• Deal with stress

Healthy relationships help relieve harmful levels of stress, which can adversely affect coronary arteries, gut function, insulin regulation, and the immune system. On the other hand, caring behaviors triggers the release of stress-reducing hormones.

• Be healthier

Research indicates that strong relationships contribute to health at any age and loneliness is a significant predictor of poor health in older adults, when you feel you have friends and family to count on you become generally more satisfied with your personal health than when you feel isolated. Moreover, hanging out with healthy people increases your own likelihood of health, an example, non-obese people are more likely to have non-obese friends because healthy habits spread through our social networks.

• Feel richer

A survey by the National Bureau of Economic Research of 5,000 people found that doubling your group of friends has the same effect on your wellbeing as a 50% increase in income!

On the other hand, poor personal relationship is linked to a number of health consequences, such as:

• Depression

It is said that loneliness is commonly associated with depression, those with fewer satisfying social connections experience higher levels of depression, pain, and fatigue.

• Decreased immune function

There is a correlation between loneliness and immune system dysregulation, it means that lack of social connections can increase your chances of becoming sick.

• Higher blood pressure

Loneliness and prolonged stress could predict higher blood pressure even years later, indicating that the effects of isolation have long-lasting consequences on our lives.

What Really Matters

As adults in mid-life, most of us have experienced marriage, long term relationships with the:

• opposite sex

• parents

• siblings

• children

• childhood friends

• office colleagues

• members of our church

• Social clubs etc.

You may have experienced some kind of disappointment in these relationships at one point or the other.
In the long term, the most important thing in your life, are your personal relationships. We have created patterns in our relationships and if at this stage in our lives, these personal relationships are not giving us any satisfaction, then we must re-examine our part in the failure, and decide on how to move forward with our lives.

This is more valuable than searching for reasons why it went wrong, or who is to blame in the relationship or questioning why the relationship did not turn out the way we expected.

Good quality relationships increases your resilience, your happiness and protects you from depression and other related “afflictions”.

Steps to get you moving forward in improving personal relationships

• Realize that you can't make people change

You can’t make people change—if they aren't open to that, you can only change how you respond and relate to them.

• Let go the past

If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.

• Practice forgiveness

There’s an insightful quote that reads: “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.”

• Deal constructively with conflicts

Being proactive in your personal relationships and attending to them – even when you don’t feel like it, is the key to keeping them happy supportive and personally satisfying.

• Positive responses towards negative situations

How you choose to respond or react to any situation with personal relationships be it family, friends or colleagues is entirely your responsibility and based on your choice not the circumstance.

Exhibit 1

In an account of a high profile personality (who chooses to remain anonymous) she shares her experience as a married woman when she moved in with her husband and realized that he had a habit of never closing anything he opens; from cans to drawers and cupboards, nothing! Starting to get irritated by this she talks to him about it and he says “I can’t help it”.

From that moment she realized he actually couldn’t help it and genuinely decided that rather than feel angry and irritated she was going to go ahead closing everything after him, not expecting a change or anything in return.

Eventually, the same husband effortlessly started to close and shut everything he opened himself! She was amazed at the change. In her words “I wondered if it was the same person”. The law of nature took over and that problem vanished!

Relationships aren’t easy but are essential to growth and happiness. We all make mistakes, but even the deepest wounds can heal and the most strained relationships can be transformed. Only you know what's right for you in this moment, and only you can find the courage to honor it.

10 Tips for Developing Positive Personal Relationships

Theodore Roosevelt once said that the most important single ingredient in the formula for success is knowing how to get along with people.

One of the most profound experiences we can have in our lives is the connection we have with other human beings.

Positive and supportive relationships will help us to feel healthier, happier, and more satisfied with our lives.

• Accept and celebrate differences

It is therefore important to keep an open mind and embrace the good and difference you see in others, chance is the others see the same in you.

• Listen effectively

Listening and understanding what others communicate to us is the most important part of successful interaction and vice versa.

• Give people your time

The connection we make with other people is the very touchstone of our existence, and devoting time, energy, and effort to developing and building relationships is one of the most valuable life skills.

• Develop your communication skills

One of the biggest dangers with communication is that we can work on the assumption that the other person has understood the message we are trying to get across.

• Manage mobile technology

Mobile phones are effective tool for communication, they also can be a complete distraction when people exhibit a lack of mobile phone etiquette.

• Give first , and expect very little, if nothing, in return

Giving first may be interpreted as consuming – in terms of time and emotional investment, but the benefits are unexpected. Behavior breeds behavior.

• Don’t argue but learn to compromise smartly

Smart compromise involves shared responsibility for the future of the relationship and assertiveness. When everybody understands the part they play in their relationships’ evolution, the focus shifts from arguments to finding a common ground.

• Share your best

Share knowledge, experience, emotions. Be it books, music, places you went or things you did that others might find interesting, many relationships are based on shared experiences, rather than anything else.

• Develop empathy

Always remember this great expression: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

• Ensure that the relationship you have with yourself is a positive one and treat people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Living a Balanced Life

Focus on the things that you are grateful for in your life. Try not to obsess about the problems at work, or home that lead to negative feelings. This doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be happy when you feel stressed, anxious, or upset. It’s important to deal with these negative feelings but try to focus on the positive things in your life, too.

You may want to use a journal to keep track of things that make you feel happy or peaceful. Having a positive outlook can improve quality of life and give your health a boost. You may also need to find ways to let go of some things in your life that make you feel stressed and overwhelmed.

Make time for things you enjoy!

Every day will not be peaches and cream, however, every day should not be gloom and doom. Make effort to be happy while achieving lifestyle balance.