In the last couple of months I have been analyzing my life to just get an appreciation of it. Most of all, I looked at my journey with Barre 3 and how it has changed my life here in South Jersey. It makes me think about my sorority days in college and how much I loved being part of an organization of supportive women. Now I have my barre community and I couldn’t be more grateful! I wanted to take a deep dive into researching how we as human beings crave community so let’s get right into the science!
I found this super interesting article about the neuroscience of human connections. The scientist behind the article is Matthew Lieberman, who is a professor at UCLA in the psychology department. He wrote a book called Social that has been added to my reading list this year. He believes that our need to connect with others is the same as the need for food and water. Quite dramatic yes but he has a point.
He takes the idea that we are not bothered by the opinions of those around us and destroys that by showing us that mammals of all types are shaped by their environment, especially when the bonds are threatened. Lieberman says that it is possible that we feel physical pain when we experience social struggles. He explains that this is an evolutionary advancement where we treat social interaction as a necessity. What we usually think of as a connection that benefits one party is actually something that both parties need and it is solely that human connection with no ulterior motive.
Lieberman studied the idea that we all mindread in a way. It is a way to understand the thoughts or feelings of others around you or characters in a book/tv show/movie. He conducted a study using fMRI which a functional magnetic resonance imaging where you can measure different areas of the brain interactions. He looked at what happens when we switch our focus from ourselves to determine how someone else feels and it happens like a seesaw where the analysis of the other person goes up quieting our self analysis and then switches to the opposite when we finish analyzing them. With this idea comes his thoughts on understanding the “self”. Lieberman describes the medial prefrontal region (the space between our eyes) to be the location of our personal memories and knowing of ourselves. But when we activate that region when someone is trying to persuade us of something we are actively letting ourselves become more social harmonized to those around us. With that idea he suggests that teaching children in a way that they can then teach someone else is a better way of building a social understanding and network.
I find this to be fascinating because it isn’t just children who need the connections and more learning of social networks. I totally appreciate learning new things from others around me! I love barre because it gives me a new group of women to learn from! They have so much knowledge in different areas that we have SO much to talk about!! I highly suggest for everyone to find a group of individuals that is outside of their comfort zone to help build the neuroplasticity in our brain dedicated to social interaction.
I hope this gives you a little better understanding of how important community is for everyone! Let me know if you are part of any communities!!
Xox, Z
