1 . We’ve all been in a position where life gets busy, schedules are difficult to coordinate and connecting with friends feels harder than ever. With some friendships, we may lose touch and want to reconnect. However，the more time that passes, the more uncertain it can feel if they want to hear from us.

A recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says it’s time to reach out. Researchers found numerous benefits when reaching out to friends and old acquaintances. Especially if you’re unsure of how well they’ll receive hearing from you. The study, led by Dr Peggy Liu, is called The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think. In the study, researchers posed the question: Do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle? To answer this question, researchers carried out 13 experiments with more than 5,900 participants. In the experiments, researchers measured how much people estimated their friends or acquaintances would appreciate them reaching out versus how much those on the receiving end did appreciate it. They also examined different forms of communication-phone calls, texts, emails, notes or even small gifts—and their impact.

Over the series of experiments, experts discovered a similar trend: those reaching out significantly underestimated how much their friends would appreciate hearing from them. Plus, the more unexpected the communication was, the more the friend on the receiving end appreciated it. “People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others,” the researchers wrote.

In fact, what made these moments of reaching out so impactful was the effort they showed—no matter the form of communication. Dr Amie Gordon, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan, emphasises the importance of small moments and making efforts in relationships in a Psychology Today article. “In a busy life, these little moments might feel just like that—little moments that don’t really matter ... But each moment we ignore is a missed opportunity to connect and build up an emotional bank of positive moments.”

The science is clear—people appreciate the effort we put into our friendships. And we greatly underestimate it. One phenomenon that may explain why those who reached out underestimated their positive impact is because of “the liking gap”. Psychologist Terri Apter writes in Psychology Today that the liking gap is a tendency to “how we often underestimate other’s responses to us”, and the reality that other people like us more than we may think.

4 . In conversations with strangers, people commonly tend to think they should speak less than half the conversation time to be likable. But we’ve discovered this idea is wrong. Our data shows that people tend to think they should speak about 45% of the time to be likable in a one-on-one conversation with someone new. However, it appears speaking up a bit more is actually a better strategy.

In our research, we randomly assigned people to speak for 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% of the time in a conversation with someone new. We found that the more they spoke, the more they were liked by their new partners. This was only one study with 116 participants, but the outcome is supported by other researchers’ findings. For example, a previous study randomly assigned one in a pair to take on the role of “speaker” and the other to take on the role of “listener. ” After engaging in 12-minute interactions, listeners liked speakers more than speakers liked listeners because listeners felt more similar to speakers than speakers did to listeners. This outcome suggests the reason people prefer those who speak up: Learning more about a new partner can make you feel like you have more in common with him or her.

Further, we assigned people to speak for up to 70% and even 90% of the time. The result shows it is not an ideal strategy. Our research does not suggest people hold down a conversational partner but rather that they feel comfortable speaking up more than they usually might.

Research like ours can help people gain a ‘more reasonable understanding of social interactions with new people and become more confident about how to make a good first impression. It has the obvious benefit of allowing us to carefully control speaking time. However, it does not reflect more natural conversations. Future research should figure out whether our findings generalize to more natural interactions.

6 . Have you had a meltdown lately? An emotional meltdown isn’t exactly a medical disease.     1     It’s a popular term used to describe a situation where we are overcome emotionally of hit a breaking point.

How do you feel after you’ve had a meltdown? Do you feel embarrassed about your behavior?     2     An occasional meltdown doesn’t mean something is “wrong” with you. It may just be an indicator of a challenging time for you.

While most people would rather forget a meltdown as quickly as possible, it can be a learning experience.

If you feel embarrassed about revealing your emotions in public, you might examine how you feel about your feelings. Why isn’t it okay for you to be angry, or to be sad, or to need something from someone else?     3     So, be kind to yourself.

If your meltdown involved raising your voice at other people or behavior like throwing an object in the presence of others, apologize and come up with a plan to manage your emotions differently the next time you’re upset or stressed. If you find this type of behavior is common for you and you’re having difficulty managing it on your own, consider reaching to a psychologist.     4     It damages another person’s attitude and eats into their health.

    5     Your experience serves a basis for reflection. Be kind to yourself and find some helpful ways to deal with meltdowns:

7 . Living Well with Others

A good life is one that is beneficial to living well with others, while living comfortably and honestly. However, not everyone can deal with the relationship well with others. They’re looking to explore new ways to make their life better.     1    

Smile at those around you. It’s often been said that a smile is catching.     2     Studies suggest that friendly engagement (交往) with others improves happiness levels, at least in part. People are more likely to treat a smiling person better than a non-smiling person.

Help others. Studies have shown that helping others has a direct relation to individual happiness.     3     Volunteering to help others has been connected to better quality of life.

    4     The golden rule is still the most important rule for getting along with others. Think of how you would like your friends to act around you. If you treat people with love and respect, they will treat you with the same.

Value your friendships with others. The quality of a person’s friendship has a direct effect upon their well-being. Friends can increase a sense of your sense of belonging and purpose.     5    

With neighbors, to be friendly isn’t to become friends with them. There’s a difference between the two, and it’s easier to be friendly than to try and become friends.     1     But you can still get friendly relationships with them by doing the following:

Be respectful

If you want to be friendly with your neighbors, avoid doing things that’ll disturb their peace. Habits such as playing loud music and partying can lead them to be angry with you. However, you don’t have to make much effort to be respectful. You can keep your interaction with them to a smile and wave.     2    

    3    

When trying to help your neighbor, you shouldn’t come off as too eager to please. But you also don’t want to stand aloof when you can see that your helping hands can go a long way. Acts as simple as holding the door or elevator open for them when you’re entering the building together, helping them with a load they’re struggling with, giving your support with small things if they ask for it, etc. , can improve your relationship with them. It takes little effort to help your neighbors most times.     4    

Give them gifts

If you want to improve your relationship with a person, one of the best ways to do it is with gifts. You don’t have to go out of your way to get them something. Holiday cards, homemade items, and small gifts are all you need, and you can wish them happy celebrations. With holiday gifts, you don’t have to give them personally.     5    . It helps if you already have some interaction with them before the gift.

10 . Social phobia (社交恐惧症) is an anxiety disorder with strong fear in social situations. People with social phobia feel paralyzing fear (麻痹性恐惧) when other people are around, as well as nervousness, pain or shyness.    1    

Learn to relax. People with social phobia often have what is known as anticipatory (预期的) anxiety.    2     For this we have to learn to relax instead of anticipating the fear of the future situation.

Look for social situations. If we always avoid social situations out of fear, it is very difficult for us to be able to overcome them.    3    In this way, when a social event arrives that we want to attend or take part in, we will be better able to be comfortable in it.

    4     Imagination can play tricks on us in social situations. In most cases you are afraid of things that have not happened or are not happening. We have to be especially careful what we think others may be thinking of us.

Be yourself. To some degree, social phobia is caused by the belief that we have to be perfect as others expect.    5     So we do not have to focus so much on what others may think of us, but on feeling comfortable with ourselves without having to be perfect.