Christmas catch-ups: Psychologist’s advice on how to reconnect with friends you haven’t seen all year

Local TV

Dr. Simon Moore emphasises the importance of making time to reconnect with loved ones, explaining the benefits of meeting in person and offering advice on how to reach out.

Transcript

00:00This is quite weird. But we also know that on a physiological

00:05level, face to face meetings have a big impact on you. So for

00:08example, we know that when you when you have these meetings,

00:12and when you go into, you know, I don't know, go out, someone

00:15might call you in quickly, or you go for a quick cup of tea,

00:18or you might even go to the pub for a kind of quick drink. What

00:21happens is that your anti stress hormones, so things like

00:24serotonin, they almost like double, which which is a really

00:29good indicator that you're finding it as a de-stressor that

00:32is actually helping you mentally and physically, kind of as a

00:37buffer against normal life, really. So that's, for me,

00:41that's really actually has a physical impact on you.

00:43I suppose it can be more difficult if throughout the

00:46year, you haven't seen that person in a long while. Do you

00:49have any advice for people who are looking at this time of

00:52year to reconnect with someone they haven't seen for a long

00:54time, especially if they feel those feelings of sort of

00:57nervousness or awkwardness about reaching out?

01:00Yeah, I think that we're guilty of thinking that, oh, you know,

01:03people think we're a pain and they don't, they didn't want to,

01:06you know, why that they obviously didn't contact us for

01:08a reason. And I think the main reason is that people are just

01:11busy and get distracted. And you know, before I mean, the number

01:14of conversations I've had recently, I've got, oh, my

01:15goodness, it's Christmas time, where did that year go? And it's

01:18not people being in, you know, they're not intending to ignore

01:21you or not meet up, they just get distracted. So actually, I

01:25would encourage people to reach out and especially this time of

01:28year, because we're, you know, we expect to, don't we? I mean,

01:31look at the films that are on the telly, they're all about

01:34reconnection. So you got things like, you know, Home Alone,

01:36you've got things like Scrooge, you've got things, I don't know,

01:39National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, the theme and the

01:42message is reconnect, because at the end of it, it's a happy

01:46ending, the fact that people are really nice, generally, and

01:49they're just, you know, they're just busy and distracted, not

01:51they're not being horrible. But if you make the first move, you

01:56probably end up having a positive experience at the end

01:58of it.

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