Social Support at Work

Warm interactions with others can be a reliable source of everyday oxytocin, as long as we're able to trust and open up.

According to the New York Times, a new study shows that friendships at work can protect against burnout and depression.

Many of us avoid getting close to co-workers, or even socializing with them or getting personal. It's unprofessional, we fear, and could lead to embarrassing entanglements. Some of us like to maintain a different persona for work that hides or minimizes interests or traits we feel aren't mainstream or widely acceptable.

However, according to the article,

People who said they felt generally supported by their colleagues and could lean on co-workers in a time of crisis were spared the rigors of job stress. In the study, men and women who felt little social support at work were two to three times more likely to suffer major bouts of depression.

Certainly, those of us who don't get close and personal with co-workers lose the opportunity to engage in a stress-reducing oxytocin response with them.

The study: Major Depressive Episodes and Work Stress: Results From a National Population Survey

Comments

[Anjuan]

This is very true. I am having trouble with a difficult person who reports to me. This person literally disappears for hours in the middle of the day and does not respond or return to my cell phone calls. I am thankful for co-workers who I can talk to about this unprofessional behavior, and I never realized that an oxytocin response was behind the stress relief I feel afterwards.

[Neurofreak]

My coworkers are all soulless shells of a human being, and the idea of being friends with them makes me feel as though I'm in danger of tarnishing my very being.

[Susan Kuchinskas]

Anjuan, it's wonderful you can have that experience in your workplace. Daniel (Neurofreak), are you sure they're actually so soulless? Sometimes we retreat very deep inside ourselves when we're hurt, depressed or downtrodden. I dare you to try -- not being friends -- but saying a friendly word.

[Adam Khan]

A very good audiobook for learning how to improve your social support at work is John Gottman's The Relationship Cure. I think Gottman has done some of the most useful research into really what makes a relationship work, and in that audiobook, he breaks it down. Good stuff.

[Susan Kuchinskas]

I just checked out his website, and I like his approach. He keeps it on the behavioral level, which is fine. The thing that interests me so much about the oxytocin response is that, because it develops after birth in response to early experience, we may not be able to do some of the behaviors he discusses, such as bidding for connection.

Adam, btw, is the author of Self-Help Stuff That Works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962465674?ie=UTF8&tag=lighthousesound&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0962465674