Social Wellness

Part of Campus Recreation’s mission is to create a culture of wellness in the Student Recreation Center and our campus community. Over the next few months, we’ll be examining eight different wellness dimensions and giving you some tips on how to incorporate holistic wellness into your daily life. Our next dimension of focus is social wellness.

What is social wellness?
Social wellness is all about the relationships that you have and how you interact with others. This dimension entails socializing, understanding the relationships in your life, and balancing your personal and social life.

Questions you can ask yourself to assess your social wellness:
Like all wellness dimensions, social wellness requires you to be mindful. Knowing yourself and how you feel in different types of social situations can help you find that balance between feeling nurtured and full in your relationships and becoming socially burnt out. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help understand your social wellness a little better.

• Am I spending enough time with family and friends?
• Am I spending too much time alone? Am I not spending enough time alone?
• Are the relationships in my life uplifting or do they bring me down?
• Are my relationships diverse? Do I have friends with different cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs?
• What is my relationship with social media and other online communities?

 

Tips for working on your social wellness:

• Reach out to people that you have never spoken to or haven’t talked to in a while.
• Bring your casual acquaintances closer. Maybe you have a coworker you get along well with or a classmate that makes your study group a little more fun. Invite them to an activity outside of work/class and create a friendship.
• Join a new club, organization, or sports team to be able to socialize more.
• Work toward healing broken relationships. Healing doesn’t always necessarily mean reconciliation, although that can be the goal for some. It’s more about finding closure, whatever that means for your particular relationship.
• Attend new events. Try and push yourself out of your comfort zone every now and then, and attend a social event you might not normally be drawn to.
• Visit with family and friends often (safely during COVID, of course).
• Curate your social media feeds carefully, and make sure to unfollow people or accounts that don’t make you happy.
• Keep your relationships positive. Venting with your friends can be a great way to help work through emotions. However, no one likes hanging out with someone who only ever brings negative energy. Make sure you’re listening and bringing plenty of positivity to your interactions.

How can SOU help you improve your social wellness?

• Join a club or student organization through SOU Presence.
• Join a study group through the Navigate Student app.
• Participate in events on campus. You can get involved with EPIC, or check out the campus-wide events calendar at SOU Events.
• Get a new job through Handshake or Career Connections.
• Campus Recreation offers many ways to be social and meet new people. Meet your friends at the SRC for a workout, some ping pong, or videogames. Join an Intramural team or a Sport Club. Or get involved with the Outdoor Program.