How to Dust Off Your Social Skills

"8 Exercises to Strengthen Your Social Muscles

Here are eight small, science-based exercises Dr. Keltner recommends to help ease back into your community. Go at your own pace.

Share food with someone.
Eating a meal together boosts mood and is a potent antidote for loneliness — aiming for in-person interaction around the ritual of eating is a great goal, even if you don’t meet it every single day. An outdoor picnic or a distanced backyard happy hour is a great and safe option for reconnecting with friends and family.
Tell someone a joke in person.
You may be out of practice and have to work on your timing. But making eye contact and laughing together is essential to feeling connected to someone else — even if the joke falls flat, being silly together will feel really good.
Ask someone what they’re listening to or reading right now.
Music and literature can be a community-building gift. Listen to music together; exchange books and have an in-person discussion afterward. This is a social exercise, but also one that will give you a much-needed hit of novelty along with the insight.
Reach out to someone you’ve lost touch with.
Make a phone call, send a meaningful text, write an email. It’s time to start rebuilding the larger social infrastructure outside our immediate circles.
Strike up a conversation with a stranger.
Pick someone with whom you have passing contact: a fellow dog-walker, the cashier at a grocery store, a delivery person on your doorstep. Make eye contact; talk to each of them as a person rather than as a function. It’s so easy to ignore the human behind a mask. Make the effort to ask something outside the normal transaction — what’s changed since the last time you saw each other, what they’re looking forward to.
Move with someone.
Dance, walk, run, swim, bike — or even do the dishes and fold the laundry together. Physical synchronicity is one of the most important ways we have to connect with someone else.
Sit quietly with someone …
and remember how to comfortably be, without talking, in companionable silence, with someone else. Let the other person know it’s OK to not always fill the air. Nonverbal communication is important to practice — and it’s a way to deepen your relationship.
Make a date for the future.
Think of something fun to do with someone you love — it could be a summer beach weekend, or maybe a ski trip next winter. Having something to look forward to is essential for well-being. Practice optimism, in anticipation of normalcy. Plan with hope."