With a busy schedule where we postpone only non-professional tasks, this call length will make it possible to take action for the good of all. This is stated in the article New York Times Published on January 2.
Even a short conversation can have a measurable impact on our well-being and help maintain our relationships with others. This is the whole point of the article, which was published on January 2 on the organization’s website New York Times, as part of their “7-Day Happiness Challenge,” created in collaboration with Harvard Psychiatry Professor Bob Waldinger. To be happier, the second day’s challenge was to call a loved one for eight minutes. No less, no more.
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The benefits of an eight-minute call
Why this particular duration? Because it would be enough to communicate and listen to each other without disrupting his daily schedule, the article suggests.
A phone call of this duration will also have many mental health benefits. According to Claudia Glaser-Mussen, a psychotherapist interviewed by the New York Daily, “hearing the sound of a loved one’s voice helps regulate our emotions.” The magazine also cites a 2021 study that found participants who received a short phone call several times a week saw their levels of depression, loneliness and anxiety drop faster than those who didn’t.
How to put it into practice?
It’s not uncommon to procrastinate when it comes to checking in on friends. We anticipate how long the phone call will take, we try to find an available time slot on busy days. However, Bob Waldinger reminds us: there is no need to procrastinate, thinking that a future day will give us extra time to call this friend who occupies our thoughts. To take action, the professor of psychiatry suggests the following steps: “Think of a person we miss, with whom we would like to communicate more often. Then write to him asking if he would like to talk to us for eight minutes; ideally, today or within a week.”
When the call time is over, the psychiatrist advises to decide together the next telephone appointment… Before hanging up and enjoying the moment, he concludes:
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Source: Le Figaro
