I love this old tale!<\/p>\n
Once an elephant was brought to a town at night. No one in that town had ever heard of, much less actually seen, an elephant. This beautiful beast was stabled in an enclosure shrouded in darkness, yet still a few curious townsfolk managed to creep in. They wanted to discover the nature of this fabled creature.<\/p>\n
One felt the leg and proclaimed, “Elephants are like living pillars!” Another felt the trunk and argued, “No, an elephant is like a serpent.” The next man felt the body, and proposed, “An elephant must be some kind of land-dwelling whale.” The last man, who felt an ear, shouted, “No! An elephant is like a living fan!”<\/p>\n
All had found a part and assumed it was the whole. No one connected all the parts, and no one waited for the illumination of the morning sun to reveal the animal in its majestic entirety.<\/p>\n
So what has that got to do with psychology research?<\/p>\n
The great author Idries Shah, who brought this tale to the West, pointed out that a tale like this can work on many different levels. Certainly, for me it’s easy to relate it to the world of psychological research. Take the following example.<\/p>\n
Research has found that mulling or rumination is the biggest predictor of the most common mental health problems in the UK, including depression.[1]<\/sup> It’s an important part of the puzzle of depression, certainly, though the researchers don’t really offer an explanation as to why<\/em> rumination is so toxic to mental health.<\/p>\n Other researchers have noted that depressed people dream more than non-depressed people, and that waking depressed people during REM sleep seems to quickly lift some of the symptoms of depression.[2]<\/sup> (Check out research piece four for more on the sleep\/depression connection.)<\/p>\n But these two ‘parts of the elephant’ \u2013 that is, these two stages in the cycle of depression<\/a> \u2013 haven’t been linked, at least not by the researchers in question.<\/p>\n Irish psychologist Joe Griffin, a former colleague of mine, was the first to put all these parts together<\/a>, to ‘switch the light on’, if you like. While other researchers continued to fumble around blind, he illuminated the elephant in its entirety.<\/p>\n We now have access to thousands of pieces of research, but we also need to see aspects of the human condition in larger contexts. What does the research mean<\/em> in the wider scheme of what it actually means to be human (if anything)?<\/p>\n To be fair, the primary role of researchers is to report findings. They can only go so far in surmising what their findings might actually mean, or how they might relate to everyday life. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.<\/p>\n In this research roundup series I want to make a bit of sense out of the seemingly disparate findings of recent psychological studies and see if we can’t make an elephant out of them.<\/p>\n Here are five recent research studies that have caught my eye of late. Have a feel of a leg, or a trunk, and just maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of the whole beautiful beast.<\/p>\n Isolation, and particularly the feeling of loneliness, has been associated with early death.[3]<\/sup> But observing an association can only take us so far. Recently we’ve seen a call for researchers to try to uncover more of this particular elephant (okay, no more elephant mentions, I promise) and reveal a bit more of the bigger picture.<\/p>\n The American Psychological Association has released a special issue reviewing scientific findings to date and encouraging collaboration between psychological scientists to find “the mechanisms by which social relationships and close personal ties affect health” and “to make close relationships a public health priority”.[4]<\/sup><\/p>\n This is great! It’s not new research per se; rather a clarion call for all the research on the benefits of close social ties to be collated and for professionals to use the findings to spread and enhance close or intimate relationships in society for a healthier and happier population.<\/p>\n My take?<\/p>\n\n Close ties offer us a sense of safety and a sense of control, both of which are vital human needs. When we meet these needs, we experience less stress and lower our levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is linked to mental distress and physical disease.[5]<\/sup><\/p>\n At the risk of sounding unromantic, we human beings are herd animals. Throughout our evolution we have had to herd together to reap the benefits of ‘safety in numbers’. There was a time when to be cast out from the tribe literally meant death. While those days are over, our instincts can’t be cast aside so easily. And nor should they be.<\/p>\n The more social connections we have, the more help we have available if something goes wrong. A friend of a friend just might know someone who can fix your freezer. A dedicated best mate will be ready with a spare bed when the landlord cuts the lease unexpectedly. A trusting, loving partner will be a pillar of support when your health takes a turn for the worse \u2013 or anything else, for that matter.<\/p>\n In one study, it was found that simply having someone to confide in helped 38% of formerly suicidal people make their way back to complete mental health.[6]<\/sup> A confidant, someone we can rely on and feel safe with, is good \u2013 maybe even essential \u2013 for all of us.<\/p>\n Relationships matter, and I suspect much of it has to do with our primal emotional needs<\/a> for meaning, safety, challenge, a sense of control, and perhaps more besides. Through our intimacies and social connections, we can meet these needs.<\/p>\n It’s when we don’t meet these needs that we experience heightened stress: a signal the need isn’t being met. And, not surprisingly, long-term stress doesn’t seem to correlate with greater longevity.<\/p>\nThe whole beautiful beast<\/h3>\n
1. Close relationships lead to longer life<\/h3>\n