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Investing time in maintaining our close friendships and relationships is good for us.
Research has shown that true friendships and loving relationships are the real fountains of happiness. If you think about it, it makes so much sense - most of your warmest memories are probably of fun times with your closest friends and family. Yet, most of us spend our lives chasing the dream of a big house, a fleet of luxury cars, fame, eternal youth, etc - thinking that’ll alone bring us lasting happiness.
Nod your head if you too have experienced the magical healing power of a close one saying something like; “I am with you.” or “This really sucks, let’s go get an ice cream.” or better still, “I need to scream my lungs out. Wanna join me?”
The longest running study on happiness by Harvard University found that the strength of a person’s close relationship was the most significant predictor of her/his overall wellbeing more than their social status, IQ and even genes. A lead psychiatrist of the study said that when the study had begun around 80 years ago nobody cared about empathy or attachment, which makes the results even more special. We are the lucky ones who know the answer thanks to studies like these. The only thing for us to do now is to chase it with our heart open.
‘No matter how far away from your ‘village’ of close friends and family you are, it is always a good idea to stay emotionally in touch with them.’
But it’s not so easy, when you can’t meet face to face as often as you want to. These days it isn't uncommon to be living on one continent and have one’s inner circle of friends and family spread over three other continents. You can’t feel their presence, really notice their body language, pat them on the back, go out with them on an adventure to the library or the woods, but you can still stay connected.
We are that fortunate generation of people who know with evidence (stamped and published!) that;
Working on our close friendships and relationships is as important as chasing our careers around the globe.
We have the digital means to stay connected with our friends and family even over long distances. Sure, we agree it’s not the same as meeting them in person but till you aren’t able to it’s a great way to keep things going. An American Psychology Association study found that a surprise phone call or message to a friend, 'just like that' or 'to catch up' is appreciated much more than we imagine. It's a meaningful gesture that you sends a strong signal to your friend that you care.
Now, you know THE ANSWER to what can make you truly happy?
It is your relationships, your friendships.
5 Ways to Stay in Touch with your Long-distance Friends and Family
A survey we conducted showed that 79.2% of respondents feel that being connected to their closest friends is important for their mental well-being and despite several low-cost means to communicate, 35.4% are not able to maintain this connection with geographical distance and time constraints. Here is a short list of easy ways in which you can stay connected with your close friends and family even over long distances:
1. Call your close friends and family members once a week. No matter how busy you are you’ll always find 15 minutes for that voice chat. For some people it is during their drive back home from work, while walking the dog, while buying groceries, and even while in the loo (Yeah! We know you are nodding there). If you have older family members, research says that they might not be as comfortable with technology to stay in touch, so you can reach out and give them a surprise call someday! This will not only bring them joy, but can also improve their health.
2. Be active on common friends’ groups on social platforms like WhatsApp. Having a college group, family group, etc helps maintain that social bond you all share together, and it’s a great place to share jokes, memes and life updates that are relevant to all. Try to be active in the groups to keep the relationship going from your end. If you share personal updates, others will feel comfortable sharing with you too. Friendships are cyclical like that. The more you give to them, the more you get in return.
3. Travel to meet each other when your friend needs you or just like that. When you make the effort to travel long distances to meet someone, you are telling them that you value their friendship above most things. So, next time when you sit down to plan a trip to see more of the world, consider traveling to meet your friend in that wonderful country she/he lives in or to a place both of you or your entire gang of buddies would like to go to together. It’s a two birds with one stone kind of thing - Traveling with friends is good for your health, and it will strengthen your bond (Psst: And it is more fun!).
4. Write personal emails or letters to each other. There is something magical about writing letters to friends. When you are typing or penning down a personal mail to someone you can express yourself more clearly, drawing a picture of your present and inviting her/him into it, and saving the mail trail as a diary entry of sorts for posterity. While writing with your hand is best, it isn’t as convenient these days as sending an email. The fact that you sat down specially to write a personal mail to someone, addressing it to them, creates an intimate connection between you the sender and the receiver. Letter writing etiquette dictates that the one who receives a letter responds to it, which keeps the channel of communication going forever.
5. Use a social app like Porchbeam that helps you track how your close friends are doing with mood sharing features. Won’t it be nice if you could quickly see the mood trend of a close friend, without having to ask them? Just a quick glance once in a while to stay updated on how they have been really doing, how they have been feeling. It’ll probably be the most meaningful thing you do on a mobile app. So, whether or not you are in a long distance relationship or friendship you can stay connected even between the times you speak or meet.
“We keep track of our footsteps, our blood pressure, and our sleep,
then why not our and our close ones feelings?”
- Ritam Dubey, Health Psychologist
Porchbeam is safe space for you to share how you are really doing with your close friends and family.
It's an app only for you and your close friends and family
These should ideally be folks you trust with your personal thoughts and feelings and visa versa. Why 20? That’s the sweet number of close friendships an individual can usually maintain. If we didn’t put a cap to it, then Porchbeam will become another conventional social media platform where all nosey aunties and random acquaintances turn up on one’s friend lists prying on photographs and posts. Porchbeam is different, it is your personal space.
You simply have to Swipe to select your present MOOD-COLOR.
Porchbeam puts color psychology to an innovative use - to help you communicate your mood to others. All you have to do is select a color that is most commonly associated with your current state of mind. Your close friends will view it against your profile picture and on your mood map. It makes talking about feelings less awkward because you don’t have to keep saying you are sad or happy, you just select a color and let it do the talking in a subtle visual way.
You can create mood-posts and share them with your close friends
Pictures and Videos often speak louder than words so add them to your mood-colors. How many times have you looked at a picture and feet that it truly captures the moment as you are feeling it right now. It’s possible that something has happened and you don’t want to write about it, you’d much rather just send the picture with your mood-color to let your close friends know what you are dealing with.
Write a note about what happened and what you are feeling. Sometimes, writing about an emotional experience helps clear the cobwebs in our mind and just makes one feel better. The benefits of journaling have stood the test of time. On Porchbeam you can create a mood post with a note, journaling what occurred and how you felt. Whether it is a happy moment or an anxious one, writing about it lightens the heart. For people who find writing a diary to themselves weird, this is a great way to write mood posts for your close one’s to see. You can think of it as a community of diarists, untangling their thoughts with each other’s support.
Every once in while check your close one’s mood updates and graphs.
To be a good friend you must be there when they need you, and at that moment you must respond to their needs with empathy. But if you don’t know how they have been for a while and what all has occurred in that time, it’s not so easy to get it right.
Knowing how they have been doing in the last week, or month tells you when you should reach out to them, what you should say and what you can do to help them feel better. Being able to view their mood updates and mood graphs is a quick and easy way to stay updated no matter how busy or far away you might be.
You must be wondering what a mood graph is. Yeah, we know it’s a fairly new concept for most of us. But it is a powerful tool that helps you understand your mental health. There are dozens of great mood tracking apps that allow you to enter your moods, the activities you are involved in at that moment, and analyze your mood graphs. Porchbeam makes it interactive and effective by sharing it with your friends. That way they know how you have been doing and you know how they have been doing. That is the first step to maintaining your friendship for life.
If this article sang to you, then follow Porchbeam on instagram and facebook to know when it is launched.
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