Less Social Interaction Is Better for a Person's Physical and Mental Health
Recently some sociologists have found that the upper limit of the number of people a person should associate with over a lifetime is around 150. More associations than that wear out body and mind, directly affecting physical and mental health.
For many of us, 150 people is a number so small it is hard to imagine. If I did not periodically delete some WeChat contacts, I could not add new ones; so I often have to remove contacts unrelated to my work.
Of course, my situation is tied to my profession. Generally, the more people an occupation requires contact with, the worse it is for a person's physical and mental health. The medical profession is no exception, even though doctors themselves are the ones who solve health problems.
I now feel thoroughly weary of dealing with new contacts. Unless work requires it, I basically no longer want to make new friends. As for old friends, unless we are of kindred spirits, I no longer care to meet them.
So here I would ask my readers: let our communication stop at reading; reading my articles is enough. Unless you have a tumor-related problem requiring consultation, please do not disturb a doctor who is already overwhelmingly busy.
Before I studied medicine, when I saw some doctors always avoiding social contact, I did not quite understand. Now that I am one myself, I feel it deeply.
Every new contact I take on means a portion of my time drains away, and means more work and greater physical and mental pressure await. The workload and pressure I already bear are beyond what an ordinary person can sustain.
When I treat patients, for those clearly worn out by socializing, I strongly urge them to change their lifestyle, change their way of working, and reduce social interaction.
Especially for patients already in the advanced stage of cancer: if they still throw themselves into too much socializing, spending their limited energy, their condition will worsen and good treatment outcomes will be hard to achieve.
Another survey shows that people whose personal assets exceed the social median have more physical and mental health problems; one important reason is that they have to face more social obligations.
Socializing usually means insufficient rest, disrupted routines, and an even more indulgent attitude toward diet. Of course, during socializing there are also countless other drains on physical strength and energy.
As for the scheming and maneuvering done for profit, that is even more harmful to health and can even endanger life. As long as we cannot shed our desire for fame, wealth and position, it is hard to step out of the arena of human competition.
Human association certainly brings pleasure, but it also brings too many worries and negative emotions. When these exceed a certain amount, they corrode our body and mind like a slow poison. A person's health is lost bit by bit, unknowingly, in just this way.
Most people in antiquity did not have this problem. In the agrarian age, the number of people our ancestors could encounter was quite limited; many lived out their whole lives on their own small plot, dealing with only a handful of fellow villagers.
This idyllic life was exactly the "small state, few people" and "cocks and dogs heard from one another, yet never visiting, until old age and death" utopia that Laozi and Tao Yuanming longed for. The reason Tao Yuanming is so beloved is probably that each of us harbors a dream of such a peach-blossom spring.
It took millions of years for the human population to reach 100 million. From 100 million to 1 billion took nearly two thousand years. From 1 billion to 2 billion took just over a century. From 2 billion to 3 billion took only thirty-two years. Since 1987, the world has gained another billion people roughly every ten years.
So our planet is far more crowded than it used to be, and each of us is surrounded by far more people than the ancients were.
And because the social division of labor grows ever finer, we depend on more and more people to survive. This reality forces us into the mire of interpersonal relationships.
The Ming-dynasty thinker Li Zhi already deeply realized that the vast, complex web of human relationships brings profound disaster to the individual spirit; the omnipresent network of relationships is a downright destruction of a person's individuality. So he wished to break free from the ethics of familial duty, but was ultimately driven by public opinion into prison, where at the age of seventy he took his own life with a razor.
We often say the world of mortal dust is bitter. What is the world of mortal dust? Put plainly, it is the network of human relationships. The thing that most influences us is our own web of relationships. This net ropes us in tightly and makes escape hard.
If one were free of this web of relationships, being deep in the mountains would be no different from being in the busy city. Tao Yuanming said, "A distant heart makes the place seem remote." That "distant heart" first means the heart distant from crowds. When you associate with fewer people, you naturally have more inner peace.
Yet, interestingly, Tao Yuanming, who so yearned for a quiet life, was himself, because of his brilliant literary talent, continually sought out by all sorts of people who "wanted to befriend" him—truly fulfilling the old saying that "sorrow begins the moment one learns to read."
Human association, if untempered, will devour us. So moderately restraining our social contact and shrinking our circle can help us lead a quieter life, and that is an important guarantee of our health and happiness.
Stop scrambling to build a vast network of contacts. A huge network brings us not only economic and social benefits, but also ill health and unhappiness.
WeChat Official Account: zhouzhiyuan360
Author's website: www.zhouzhiyuan.com
Author's WeChat ID: zhouzhiyuan1979
