Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

social medicine
, ” I suggested. 
Marc told me that not only was he enjoying his “ new family, ” but 
that he also felt exhilarated with the time he spent with Karen. Yet 
he worried that if he told her that he felt more for her than friend-
ship, he would lose her and all his new friends. 
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“ Sometimes you have to take risks in relationships, ” I told him, 
“ and I think you ’ re ready. ”
During our next session Marc told me that they had had their fi rst 
“ real date ” and that he would “ always remember every moment of it. ”
My visits with Marc became sporadic after that. He told me that 
he would call if he needed me, then he chuckled. 
Marc is not alone. Although we are frequently online, e - mailing one 
another, and calling on the phone, the time we actually spend with 
one another has decreased. Compared to just a hundred years ago — 
when our ancestors were socially immersed in their communities, 
villages, and extended families — we are in virtual communities 
shielded from one another but linked by our electronic devices. 
This lack of social connectedness leaves us starving for warmth and 
grasping for a vicarious version of it through TV shows and movies. 
Multidimensional relationships of the past have given way to one -
dimensional and disconnected relationships. If you need help with 
your computer, you call tech support in Bhopal, India, and talk to 
a person who has been trained to lose his or her accent so that you 
will feel comfortable and trusting. Few and far between are the 
people who come to your home to fi x whatever gadget is broken. 
Despite these trends, study after study has shown that positive 
relationships are good for your health (particularly your immune 
system), whereas poor or no relationships are bad for your health. 
About fi fteen years ago I devoted an entire section of a book to the 
developing fi eld of psychoneuroimmunology (Arden, 1996). This 
new fi eld details the interface among the immune system, the mind, 
and emotion (Cohen, 2004). 
The positive effects of social medicine affect your brain as well 
as many other areas of your body. The following list shows the many 
health - related effects of social medicine: 
•
↓
Cardiovascular reactivity (Lepore, Allen, and Evans, 1993)
•
↓ 
Blood pressure (Spitzer, Llabre, Ironson, Gellman, and 
Schneiderman, 1992)
•
↓ 
Cortisol level (Kiecolt - Glaser, Rickers, George, Messick, 
Speicher, Garner, et al., 1984)
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•
↓ 
Serum cholesterol (Thomas, Goodwin, and Goodwin, 
1985)
•
↓ 
Vulnerability to catching a cold (Cohen, Doyle, Turnes, Alper, 
and Skoner, 2003)
•
↓ 
Depression (Russell and Cutrona, 1991)
•
↓ 
Anxiety (Cohen, 2004)
• 
Slowing down of cognitive decline (Bassuk, Glass, and 
Berekman, 1998)
• 
Improvement in sleep (Cohen, 2004)
• 
↑ 
Natural killer cells (Kiecolt - Glaser, Rickers, George, Messick, 
Speicher, Garner, et al., 1984)
What ’ s going on here? How do your relationships have such an 
impact on your body, including your brain? The answer involves 
the interaction between those parts of the brain that we are calling 
the social brain. The OFC, the mirror neurons, and the cingulate 
cortex thrive on social interaction. They are the brain systems that 
began wiring up when you bonded with your parents. If those 
relationships were positive, you developed an ability to control your 
emotions (or, in the technical jargon, gain better “ affect regulation ” ). 
When your relationships are supportive, you feel comforted, and 
these brain systems become wired so that you can also comfort 
yourself. This is because these brain systems are connected to 
the emotional parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, and to the 
parasympathetic nervous system, which helps you to calm down in 
the face of stress. 
In addition to the OFC, the mirror neurons, and the cingulate 
cortex, other brain systems thrive on social relationships. For exam-
ple, another key part of your social brain is called the
insula
. It ’ s not 
visible from the outside because it is tucked into a major fold in the 
cortex. The insula is involved in many social feelings and forms part 
of the neural basis for love and disgust. The systems of the social 
brain include the following:
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