Why Hello

Smiles and Hellos are the exercises to happiness.

Communication is always around us, but we don’t think about it a lot. A greeting means you see someone. A greeting means that you matter. And psychologically that hits a chord with everyone, because we all want to belong — we all want to be important in the eyes of others.

According to a study published in the Journal of Psychology, even brief social interactions with strangers, such as a friendly greeting, can improve our mood and reduce feelings of loneliness and social isolation.

The Connection Prescription

There is significant evidence that social support and feeling connected can help people maintain a healthy body mass index, control blood sugars, improve cancer survival, decrease cardiovascular mortality, decrease depressive symptoms, mitigate posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and improve overall mental health.

In a meta-analysis by Holt-Lunstad and colleagues at Brigham Young University, they examined 148 articles published on the effects of human interactions on health outcomes, and they reported that social connections with friends, family, neighbours, or colleagues improves the odds of survival by 50%.

Low social interaction was reported to be similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and to being an alcoholic, to be more harmful than not exercising, and to be twice as harmful as obesity.

Source: National Library of Medicine

Three things every person needs

The self-determination theory developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan focuses on three basic human needs for sustained, volitional motivation:

When one of these three basic needs is obstructed, then a person suffers. If a person feels stuck, they suffer; when a person feels incompetent they suffer; when a person feels like they don’t belong they suffer. It is only when all three needs are met that a person feels motivated to tenaciously pursue goals and can thus achieve optimal performance, creativity, and well-being.

What connection looks like

In November 2023, Mark travelled to the Dominican Republic with Builders for Change to help build homes. The community was extremely poor, but the people had a community that looked after each other, and they greeted everyone with an infectious smile. They had nothing, but they sang, danced and laughed the entire day.

How can people with nothing be happier than people with everything? Go back to the three basic needs: they could make their own decisions, they each had a task that helped their community survive, and they felt loved every day.

Hello * Community * Happiness.

Say-Hello today!