As I was preparing for this "connection" episode of the podcast the old television game show "Love Connection" came to my mind. So cheesy but really a fun memory around connection.

What happens in the body when you are isolated? Serious health conditions like anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, memory loss, aggression, insomnia just to name a few. Social isolation increases your risk for premature death as much as smoking and obesity. All of this due to the complex effects of neural, genetic, hormonal, behavioral and emotional physiology.

We came out of the pandemic isolation distanced and it has now become a social norm which is exacerbating the immune compromise. Rather than congregating and sharing our energy and immunity with a healthy immune response, we are isolating and in fear, which triggers the sympathetic fight, flight, or freeze response.

Is it a coincidence that as the social distancing and isolation of the past 3 years has become common, that anxiety and depression have skyrocketed along with many chronic diseases including autoimmune disease?

Again you find lifestyle having a significant and direct effect on your health and the SAD culture norms sabotaging health at the primitive level of connection.

Why do you do the things that other people do? It gives you connection. As human beings connection is healing. We all share energy so who you spend your time with and what your surroundings look and feel like, all have an impact on your overall health.

Going back to physiology, you find that humans are wired for connection with mirror neurons that read and reflect others emotions. The senses of touch and smell turn us on and off to others. The beneficial chemicals of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin upregulate well-being and happiness and are present when you feel physical connection.

Social isolation is compounding the effects of SAD. What happens when you isolate? Mental health with depression and anxieties are all interwoven and they are all feeding this negative health cycle that is trending in the SAD culture. It's important to break this negative health cycle and one of the best ways to break it is through community. It's through connection.

It's counter intuitive because we've been taught that distance is how we become more healthy but actually it's connection. Conversation, touch, hugging, kissing, love and sharing. Healthy relationships of loving and sharing are vital to thriving. I wrote about this in the final lesson of 8 Lessons Lupus Taught Me: From Surviving to Thriving with Autoimmune Diseases. The underpinning of healing is having connection.

If you are listening in real time we are coming into the winter season of the holidays in the United States. This time, more than any other time of year, brings people together in tradition of gratitude, love, and connection whether it be for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, or New Year's celebrations. These are times culturally to come together and connect with each other and our heritage and traditions. It's a time of coming together in celebration.

Now is a great time to use some strategies to reconnect. I'm literally employing these in my own life right now and it's kind of the underpinnings of Grandma's Kitchen.

Grandma's Kitchen is a new resource within the Living WOW Center based on recipes, tips, and techniques for cooking. I know that you can get this information from anywhere all you have to do is google and there's the answer to whatever problem you have. But what I find is that is contributing to the disconnect.

Culturally we would learn these things from our grandmother's and mother's around pots and around ovens. Each culture is unique but the way that the skills of growing, harvesting, preservation, preparation, and consumption of the meals would happen was as a family. Our families look much different than they did 100 years ago.