Why checking in with old friends is good for your mental health (and theirs)

In his introduction to his newish memoir, “Talking to Canadians,” Rick Mercer wrote about how hard it is to remember things accurately — especially things that happened 25 years ago.

To make sure his memory of the events were roughly close to what actually happened, he called up a lot of old friends to chat about old times. He writes that he’s “eternally grateful” for those “catch-ups.”

“If I have any advice,” Mercer wrote, “it’s pick up the phone and place those calls — you don’t need to be writing a book to do so.”

Solid advice that happens to be backed by Capital-S “Science,” thanks to a team of American researchers who recently published “The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think” in the American Psychological Association’s “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”

And, it turns out, it’s not only the caller who gets to feel good — the vibes on the receiving end are even more profound. Getting an unexpected catch-up call means far more to people than most of us realize. We’ve been consistently underestimating how much this means to our friends and family.

Although this is news, the core premise doesn’t surprise Gordon Flett, Canada Research Chair in personality and health and professor at York University’s department of psychology. Flett has spent much of his career working on “mattering,” an under-the-radar concept that might help explain why reaching out is so powerful.

In a nut, “mattering” posits that feeling we actually matter to other people is important to our general well-being and mental health. This may seem obvious. Nobody likes to feel insignificant, invisible or irrelevant. A growing body of research, though, is slowly establishing that “mattering” could be one of the most important factors in mental health — connected to self-esteem issues, depression and suicidal ideation.

“The concept really languished partly because the main creator didn’t live long enough to really popularize it,” said Flett, referring to Morris Rosenberg, a University of Maryland sociologist who died in 1992. “But I’ve never seen a variable that is so powerful when it’s pitted against other concepts.

“When people feel like they matter, it predicts positive things beyond many of the other very big-ticket predictors like, say, social support or having a sense of purpose.”

Flett said that, by the same token, when people feel like they don’t matter to other people, it’s a major predictor of negative outcomes.

So, much the same way that we tend to underestimate how much our phone call means to the person on the receiving end, many researchers have underestimated how much mattering matters. Especially, Flett said, with two populations — adolescents and seniors.

Before you pick up the phone, though, Flett said that there are better — and worse — ways to reach out. Don’t, for instance, call unless you have enough time to really catch up. That said, calling because you have a long drive ahead of you and some time to kill isn’t a good idea, either.

“Aside from the fact that, even if you’re doing the hands-free thing, it’s dangerous, you’re definitely not going to get active listening because your attention is divided,” warned Flett, who explained that paying full attention is essential to mattering.

He points to recent research on parental “phubbing” (snubbing the person in front of you by looking at your mobile phone instead of the person you’re with) is linked to stress, confusion and poor attachment.

Other “landmines” include starting off by asking someone if they’re finally married yet, quit that dead-end job or when they’re going to start having kids.

“There are a few quick ways to start down bad paths and another big one is telling someone they’re very predictable,” explained Flett. “And all of these start to border on something we call ‘anti-mattering,’ which is when people feel that others have gone out of their way to make you feel unimportant or invisible.”

This goes beyond interpersonal relations with friends and family and into issues about ethnicity, class, gender and age. Racialized people often feel like they matter less in an educational setting than others. Girls who get called upon less in class than boys — a problem in many classrooms — can’t help but think they matter less. Women often get worse service than men in a range of contexts, from restaurants to hospitals. Seniors often complain about feeling invisible.

The good news is that there’s a lot we can do to make people understand that they do matter, starting with the basics — paying full attention. Flett said that we need to channel our inner Joe Biden and make people know that we are fully focused on them, to the point that they feel like they’re the only people in the room. Or, at least on the phone line with us.

“I think I said that even telling somebody you’ve been thinking about them and you’re interested in them is incredibly powerful,” said Flett. “Rosenberg was quite clear about simply saying ‘I’ve missed you’.

“Saying you’ve missed somebody, without any qualifications, can have an incredible resonance.”

SHARE: