Friendship can feel effortless as a kid and mysteriously hard as an adult — yet it's one of the strongest predictors of a happy, healthy, long life. Science shows our brains treat connection as a basic need, loneliness as a kind of pain, and good friendships as something built through time, vulnerability and repeated low-stakes contact rather than luck.This free course gathers clear, science-based explainers into one path. You will learn how friendships actually form and how to make them as an adult, why social connection matters so much for your brain and body, and how to recognise which friendships to invest in and which to let go.By the end you will understand your own friendships and how to build better ones. This is grounded in psychology and neuroscience — practical and genuinely useful. There is no quiz — you finish each video by writing your own question and learning from how others answer theirs
Hi, I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist and I make mental health education videos. It turns out our brains are wired for social interaction, and when we don't get it, the brain changes and you lose nerve connections in certain parts of the brain. Before COVID, this issue was more noticeable in older people who lived alone, cut off from their families, and maybe unable to drive. Researchers saw that the social isolation hastened the age-related cognitive decline, and was a risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. But with COVID and the ensuing lockdown, we see the evidence of these brain changes in younger people. You may experience it as brain fog. Brain fog can be a lot of things, but in general, you can think and process information slower. You can have trouble finding words. You can feel mentally tired and draggy, even though you haven't done anything that's physically tiring. Why would social isolation do this? Your brain is made up of a network of nerves that connect to one another. The tighter the connections between the nerves, the better they are able to transmit signals from one nerve to another. Inflammation loosens these connections as does social isolation. Social isolation affects your social cognition. Social cognition is a set of skills that include being able to read someone's emotional expression. Remembering and recognizing someone whose face is familiar to you. Being able to interpret someone's tone of voice, and being able to empathize with another person and appreciate that they have their own desires, goals, and intentions. This last skill is called theory of mind. Don't know why it's called that. It doesn't quite make sense to me, but that's just in case you read that in the articles that I have referenced. These skills are learned very early on, but we need social interaction to maintain them. So some aspect of isolation is that you lose these skills because you fall out of practice. But then there's the brain changes. In one of the studies that I referenced, researchers looked at structural MRI data from 32,000 people. That's a large study. The people who were socially isolated showed brain loss in the temporal lobes, frontal lobes and hippocampus. Your hippocampus is important for emotional memories among other functions, and I've said before that people who are depressed have smaller hippocampi. Now, if you've watched many of my videos, you probably know that I don't like presenting negative information without a silver lining and here it is. Even if you have brain loss from pandemic isolation, depression, long COVID or something else that causes brain damage, your brain has the ability to rewire itself, and strengthen loose connections. This ability is called neuroplasticity. So one solution to this problem of social isolation is to build up your cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve is the mental buffer you have that lets your brain compensate and function even when you have reduced brain volume. It's like having a backup power generator turn on when the power goes out. And this is a real thing, and explains why some people can get to their eighties, and still be very sharp while someone else at 68 is having trouble remembering important events. The more robust your cognitive reserve, the better you're able to function when exposed to stressors like isolation, environmental toxins, chronic stress, or anything else that's damaging to the brain. So you can think of cognitive reserve as your brain's physiological resilience. Here are five things that can increase your cognitive reserve. Education. High levels of social interaction. Cognitively challenging jobs. Activities that engage your brain like crossword puzzles. Reading. Learning a new language. And learning to play an instrument. And then regular physical exercise because exercise stimulates nerve growth, and nerve growth means new pathways and connections. I explain how that works in my video on how exercise changes your brain. Building up your cognitive reserve is something you do over a lifetime. It's not a one and done thing, you have to continuously engage your mind. An education doesn't mean you have to go to Harvard or Oxford, if you're in the UK. It's not about the kind of degree you get. It's about a commitment to learning and processing new information. When I was growing up without the internet, the way that you gained knowledge was to go to school or go to the library, and look things up in encyclopedias. But now there is so much information available online that you can get a very advanced level of education from researching and reading from trusted online sources. If you want to learn a new language, there's online courses for that. Then there's even free YouTube videos that can teach you a lot about a lot of different things. You just have to stay curious. This list that I just gave you isn't exhaustive. Diet, sleep and self-care also factor in. But the one thing I like about this list is that most of the factors are within your control. You may not be able to control how challenging your job is. In fact, it may be a mind-numbing struggle for you to get through it every day, but you can compensate for the hit that your brain takes from that kind of job by exercising before you go to work. You can swing that schedule or working on mind puzzles during your lunch hour or when you get home. And by the way, don't mistake a stressful job for a mentally-challenging one. Too much work with unrealistic deadlines can make your work stressful, but it doesn't mean it's mentally challenging in a positive way. Mentally-challenging work should feel satisfying at some level even if it's hard work. Take a look at this video on what exercise does to your brain. Thanks for watching. See you next time.
Hi there, Psych2go fans. For those of you who are new, or someone who's been a loyal fan, we're glad to see you here I wanna thank you for supporting us. Your on-going help, sharing and liking, has helped Psych2go to continue our mission to make psychology accessible to everyone Want more information about the topic of this video? No problem. There are references at the end. [Insert Elevator Music] [Insert Elevator Music] *relaxing sigh* [Insert Elevator Music] [Insert Elevator Music Fades] Are you lucky enough to have a best friend? or at least have known a deep trusting friendship? Finding a true and loving friendship, the one that makes you feel happy, safe and secure, is so rare and special that when we do, we can’t help but wish that it would last forever. Having friends like this can be the greatest pleasures in life. So it can be devastating for us to lose them. Saying “goodbye” to a best friend is heart breaking. But trying to savage a friendship that’s not meant to last, does more harm than good. Loving someone means doing what’s best for them, even when it hurts you. With that said, here are 6 Signs That Can Help You Realise That It’s Time To Let Go Of Your Best Friend. 1) You are second guessing your friendship. Though you don't want to admit it, you are second guessing the relationship. Questioning what the point of the friendship is. You've both changed so much that it's almost as if you're completely different people now. You no longer have anything in common and don't know what to talk about. and don't know what to talk about. Conversations that were once easy going and fun, now feel constantly awkward and forced. Everything you used to love doing with them, you've seemed to stop enjoying altogether. No matter how much you want to hold onto the past and the way things used to be between you two, you know in your heart that everything's just too different now. 2) You don't communicate anymore. Another common reason why friendship end, is because people tend to grow apart over time. You and your best friend have both gone on your separate ways. but you're still holding on and pretending like you have it. You still see them as your best friend even if you haven't kept in touch, you haven't kept in touch or talked to them in ages. You barely see each other anymore, and neither of you make any effort to get together. You might want to pretend as if this is normal, especially if you're either busy or live far apart from one another. At some point though, It will all start sounding like empty excuses to you. 3) You want different things. We all have plans and goals that we want to achieve in our lives. and sometimes pursuing them can mean to let certain people go. It's hard when you and your best friend want different, every different things for yourselves and staying in the friendship means sacrificing one or another's hopes and dreams. Asking someone to give that up for you, will only make them resent you for it in the end. 4) You've found other friends. You may not realise that you and your best friend are already drifting apart, until you make new close friends. When being with people, other than your BESTIE feels more compatible and comfortable, that's already a clear sign that it's time to let go. Or at least accept that the friendship isn't what it was and the status of "BEST FRIEND" drop. This doesn't mean the new friends will treat you better or that you like them more than your best friend. It simply means that you belong more with them than you do with your old friend and that you owe it to yourself, and to them to be honest about it. 5) They've broken your trust. This is a particularly a sad reason for ending a friendship Unfortunately, it does happen. Trust is, after all, the foundation of any healthy relationship. Without it , things can never move forward or get better between you and your best friend Maybe you've just had one fight or too many or you've said some things to each other that can't be taken back Either way, there's been too much hurt to save the friendship. Collins & Van Dulmen 2006 study states that although repeated forgiveness and moving on is an option, the best thing you can do at that point, is to start over and find peace with someone else. And 6) You are the only one holding on. Finally if you feel that the effort to keep the friendship alive is virtually one sided with you being the load bearer then it might be time to end things with this person As much as it hurts to be rejected, especially by someone you've considered to be your closest and dearest friend. Trying to force them to change their mind is still wrong. If they don't want you in their life anymore spare yourself the endignity and leave. Asking for answers to get closure is an option. Anymore than that though is not recommended. Generally speaking, it's not good for your self-esteem and mental health to stay with someone who clearly doesn't want you. No matter how you look at it, letting go of someone you love is one of the most difficult and painful decisions you're ever going to make in life. You may experience a cycle of grieving with stages of anger, denial and sadness before accepting it. Through it all though, you'll understand that deep down inside that it is the right thing to do. Some things are just meant to come apart and that's okay. People are meant to change and mature. Moving forward in life means learning and growing from your past not being held back by it. Can you relate to this video? Have you experienced any of the points indicated or notice it happening around you? How have you reacted? Please comment, subscribe and like below Don't forget to share this video with someone who might relate to it as well. We'd also love to hear what you would be interested in us covering next. Thanks for watching and thank you for being YOU :) Bye yall have a great day/night :D [Eng Sub by "bb hyunnie 04"]