Source: Christina Morillo/Pexels

With a hat tip, or maybe a dedication would be a better word, to my dear friend Riaz Meghji.

I have often written about our human need to communicate with each other, face to face, which allows us to share emotions through our mirror neurons and unconscious minds. It’s a particularly important concept to grasp here in North America, where our frontier mentality shapes our thinking still. We are inclined to think that we are solo creatures rather than seeing how communal we actually are, and how much we need to connect with other humans to reinforce our sense of belonging to a tribe so as not to feel alone.

The terrible scourge of mass killings we are suffering here in the United States owes at least something to our gospel of the solitary cowboy. None of the people apprehended for these murders, as far as I’ve been able to determine, was well integrated into a community of people with whom they checked in regularly, socialized, and felt connected. We humans are deluded when we think we were meant to be, or are fated to be, alone.

A recent study found that simply having one conversation a day with another human boosts happiness and lowers stress levels. In-person is better than via video or phone or text. Why is one conversation a day helpful and, indeed, important, for our well-being?

What happens when two of us humans start chatting is not exactly what we think. We focus on what we’re talking about—news, sports, weather, dogs, the meaning of reality—but what is really going on is that our unconscious minds are exchanging information at an extraordinary rate. The unconscious mind can process on the order of 11 million bits per second, whereas the conscious mind is creeping along at more like 40 bits per second. While we agree that the weather is pleasant, or that the chances of the Red Sox winning the championship this year are modest, our unconscious minds are confirming that the other person is a friend, that we are sharing information about our emotional states, and that it is good to be alive today.

More than that, our unconscious minds are checking our trust levels, our relative status levels, our potential for deeper connection. We’re getting confirmation from the other person’s reaction that we are worth noting, ourselves, because we are present in the world and fulfilling some useful role in it. How we move relative to each other, how close or distant we are, what we smell like—it’s all animal information that is important to our sense of belonging in a world that we can grok.

So, take care of yourself. Have a conversation a day, in person, with a friend, an acquaintance, or simply the barista in your favorite café. Your stress levels and happiness quotient will thank you. And maybe, just maybe, we can de-stress our world just a little bit, one convo at a time.