Chat with a friend just once a day to catch up, joke around, or tell them you’re thinking of them can increase your happiness and reduce your stress level at the end of the day, according to the results of a new study from the University of Kansas (USA).
“This work is an attempt to define quality communication in the context of relationships,” explains study co-author, Jeffrey Hall. “The types of communication we chose to study were those that, according to previous research, they made people feel closer through conversation”, he explained.
Quality conversations include seven aspects: catching up, making sense, joking, showing affection, listening, valuing others and their opinions, and lastly, giving sincere compliments.
The study
To over 900 participants from five university campuses (before, during, and after the pandemic lockdown) were asked to practice one of seven communicative behaviors in a single day, and that evening they reported their feelings of stress, connection, anxiety, well-being, loneliness, and quality of his day.
According to Hall, it doesn’t matter which of these quality conversations was held. “What mattered most was the mere act of intentionally approaching a friend in one of these ways,” he details. “One of the take-home messages from this study is that there are many paths to the same goal,” he adds. According to Hall, the study was also designed to explore the impact of both quality and quantity of daily communications.
The most important thing is the mere act of intentionally reaching out to a friend. There are many ways to do it
Jeffrey Hall, a researcher at the University of Kansas who co-authored the study
“There are many studies that state that both the number and the quality of interactions are related to a person who is less lonely, happier and more connected,” says Hall. According to this study, once is enough, but “more is better”. Thus, the participants who chose to have more quality conversations had better days.
“This means that the more you listened to your friends, you cared more about them and the more time you spent valuing the opinions of others, the better you felt at the end of the day,” explains the study co-author.
improve well-being
“The experimental design means that not only people who already have fulfilling lives maintain higher quality conversationssays Hall. “This study suggests that anyone who spends time in quality conversation can improve your well-being. We can change how we feel on any given day through communication. It only takes once,” she reiterates.
The study also added to Hall’s previous research on ways to connect in the age of mobile and social media.. The study found that high-quality face-to-face communication was more closely associated with well-being than electronic or social media contact. “If at least one of her quality conversations was face-to-face, that mattered,” says Hall.
The study found that high-quality face-to-face communication was more closely associated with well-being than electronic or social media contact.
The study also explains why quality communication makes people feel better. According to the relationship theory ‘Communicate Bond Belong’ (CBB) According to Hall, people use conversations with friends to satisfy their need to belong.
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“In these three studies, quality conversations were most important for connection and stress,” says Hall. “This supports the idea that we use communication to satisfy our need to belong and, by doing so, it helps us manage stress.”
What’s interesting about this research, according to Hall, is that it shows that “a good conversation with a friend has many good things”. “This shows that taking time for quality conversation enhances our days,” she concluded.