Like food and water, socializing is not optional.

We may forget this. We live in a society where you can technically survive without meaningful human interaction—feed yourself, exercise, sleep, work. But surviving and being healthy are not the same thing.

This may be obvious to most people. There's enough media calling out the pandemic of loneliness, the disconnection, the desperate search for community. But this idea is more for those of us who get caught up in a kind of workaholism—who see socializing as a distraction from responsibilities, who believe going out with friends or family can always wait until the work is done.

Even if you have a family at home, being out and part of a broader community is vital. Not optional.

I notice this in myself constantly. I've had to actively switch this frame of reference, much like I had to accept that physical exercise isn't technically necessary for survival—but my mental health and happiness deteriorate substantially without it. Social connection works the same way. It belongs in the health portfolio right alongside sleep, diet, and movement.

I had an afternoon walk with a friend today. Simply being able to talk through things—my frustrations, my challenges, my confusions—not in a structured therapy context but as a friend to a friend, relieved some of the pressure. Just articulating it helped.

Better yet, hearing about their life and their perspectives broadened my own. It wasn't directly related to anything I'm dealing with. It was just hearing about somebody else's world and living through it for a moment. That's a kind of balm. A kind of healing.

If you have to sacrifice social connection for some period—a deadline, a crisis, a season of heads-down work—know that you will need to re-up. Just like you might stop exercising when you're sick, eventually you get back to it. You re-up on sleep, on diet, on movement. You re-up on people too.

The physical conditions of a healthy life must be honored. So too must the social and interpersonal ones. They are part of a healthy, happy brain.

Pay attention to all of it. Not just the parts you can measure.