I know that harping on the need to connect with family and talk with them while at college is a subject that most closely resembles beating a dead horse. However, it is uniquely important to be sure to do this, especially in a pandemic environment.
I have specifically scheduled two times a week in which I call family. Once a week on Friday I call my parents and on Tuesday I call my grandmother.
This weekly gesture is so simple, yet the benefits it has brought them and I are incredible and at times surprising. Therefore, I think everyone should schedule a time to call home at least once a week.
Research by the Wyoming Department of Health and Center for Disease Control have found that Americans are more isolated from real and meaningful connections than almost any time in the past 50 years.
The benefits of reaching out those close to you at such a time are numerous and universal.
The most obvious and basic of which is that talking to family feels good. I know it sometimes can be aggravating, especially if you have a relative who likes to Facetime while only pointing their camera at the ceiling.
However, the discussion between family members offers a chance to catch up and check on well-being in ways that feel good and remind everyone of their connections. Being able to interact with your personal network and be reminded that you have positive connections is an excellent way to stave off the sense of isolation.
Furthermore, there is proof that even talking to family on the phone is chemically good for you. According to the American Psychological Association, just hearing and responding to the voices of our loved ones is a great way to get the feel-good chemicals, Dopamine and Serotonin, flowing through your brain.
Stepping away from the provable benefits, I would even argue that these calls are important to keeping connected with family.
College is a time of transition where we as young adults are truly taking our first steps to our own lives. This means that we are also taking steps away from the safety nets we’ve had in the past.
In order to make sure you don’t fully abandon or lessen your connection with family, it is critical to schedule and maintain times where you actively seek to reconnect. The easiest and most basic way to keep that reconnection is by simply calling your family members.
I understand some would argue that you don’t actually step away from family during this time. However it is way too often that we go off to our professional careers while our family go our separate ways and end up spending little to no time fully engaging with those familial bonds like we did when we were younger.
A simple 15 minute call is the least you or I can do to check up on the well-being of our family while also keeping those connections close. These people gave birth to and raised us. We bare minimum owe them a fraction of our weekly attention to check up and say hi.
Due to the tangible mental health benefits as well as the familial connections, it is important to take the steps to uphold those ties. That is why I schedule times to call my family and everyone else should too.
