Why is a sense of community so important to our well-being?

Introduction Have you ever felt worried about an upcoming exam? Or sad because you didn’t do so well on that exam? It is normal to have these emotions. But if these feelings last a while and get much worse, they could turn into anxiety or depression (Fig. 1). In today’s world, anxiety and depression are becoming more common. Psychologists often study how people can prevent the development of anxiety and depression. Having a healthy balance of positive emotions can help. These contribute to good psychological well-being. But what kinds of things can influence people’s emotions? It’s one thing to feel like you belong to a group. This is called having a sense of community. The community could include your family, friends, sports team, or even online gamer friends. Feeling supported and sharing connections with others can generate positive emotions. Another thing that can affect our emotions is how we think about our past, present, and future experiences. You may not realize it, but we all see these moments in time in different ways. This is called our time perspective. Sometimes we look back at our memories and think happy thoughts, and other times we look back and think sad thoughts. This also happens when we think about our present and future. Thoughts can be happy, sad, or something in between. A balanced time perspective is when people combine positive aspects of their past, present and future. They also think about the past, present, and future equally instead of focusing on just one. Having a balanced time perspective can help develop good psychological well-being. Both a person’s sense of community and time perspective are important for mental health. But we don’t really know how they interact with each other. For example, if someone doesn’t feel like they belong in a group, does that mean they feel more anxious? Are these feelings different if the person always thinks negatively about the future? These were the types of questions we wanted to explore. Methods We asked 352 people from an Italian community to participate in our study. They ranged in age from 18 to 86, with an average age of approximately 35 years. We asked participants to answer questions from three different surveys. We use these surveys to measure: your levels of anxiety, depression and stress; how connected they felt to a group (sense of community); and whether they had a balanced or unbalanced time perspective. We then used a statistical model to see if time perspective explained the link between sense of community and psychological well-being. Results We found that people with a stronger sense of community felt better. They had less stress, depression and anxiety. We saw the same thing in people with a more balanced time perspective (Figure 2). Our model demonstrated that a person’s time perspective is important when analyzing their sense of community. We found that it explained 44% of the link between sense of community and anxiety and depression. It also explained 25% of the link with stress. This is like being able to do your weekly grocery shopping in half an hour. And 44% of the reasons you can do it in that time is because you made a list. To understand why you’re so good at grocery shopping, you need to understand how making a list helps you shop. Discussion A strong sense of community is essential for good mental health. Our results confirm this for a wide range of people. More importantly, the strength of this bond is related to a person’s time perspective. For example, people who have a strong connection to their community have less anxiety, depression, and stress. This relationship could change if people had a more or less balanced sense of time. What does this really mean? Let’s say you have a great group of friends. You do a lot of things together and you trust them. They make you feel less stressed. Let’s also say that you generally think that things in the future will not be as good as in the past. Now imagine that you are trying to plan your next birthday party. You don’t think there’s any way this next birthday will be as good as the last, even though your friends will be there. This increases your stress. Your view of time is affecting your stress level, even though you have a strong sense of community. People look to the past and make decisions for the future. They do this with the people in their lives in mind. Time perspective and a sense of community are important for psychological well-being. Programs should be created to teach people about these aspects of mental health. In the future, we would like to expand this work to more people and more diverse communities. This will help us better understand how to improve mental health. Conclusion Life is full of creating memories, living in the moment, and looking toward the future. Now you know that what we think about these moments in time also influences how we feel. Thinking about the past, present and future with a balance of positive emotions helps maintain good mental health. If you ever start to have feelings of sadness or worry that keep you from doing the things you love, here are some suggestions: Talk to your friends or a trusted adult about your feelings. If this is too difficult for you, you can find a local helpline and speak to a volunteer. Plan to do things with your community. Practice mindfulness. Maintain a healthy lifestyle. For example, eat well and get enough sleep.