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Priority One
Priority One Feeling socially connected can be a matter of life or death!
Priority One Executive Manager, Psychological Education Nat Dunton.
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What is social connectedness?
The importance of social connectedness has never been more forefront in our minds and more sought after than this past year living with COVID-19 reports Priority One Executive Manager and Psychologist Nat Dunton. A year that has seen social isolation and loneliness peak with increases in poor mental health due to this forced disconnect.
We are inherently social creatures. It’s evolutionary! Social engagement and connection occurs outside the realm of our own consciousness. In fact, it is a core psychological need for you to engage socially and maintain a variety of quality interpersonal relationships. Feeling part of a group engenders a sense of trust and support, a sense of self-esteem, control and a sense of purpose, direction and meaning and allows for the giving and receiving of care, support and protection.1, 2, 3
While this may conjure up thoughts that these connections need to be deep and meaningful, research has shown that it is also in our participation in everyday contacts (known as social integration) that our social brain is engaging and connecting with people. Simply making eye contact, shaking hands and giving a high five is enough to release oxytocin which increases your level of trust and lowers your cortisol levels, decreasing stress.
How much in-person interaction are you having right now–whether it be in your current office or station or within your community?
What reduces your chances of survival the most?
This was the key question asked by the researcher and psychologist Julianne HoltLunstad in a study spanning seven years exploring all aspects of lifestyle to look at the key factors that reduced the chances of mortality. The top two predictors of mortality were related to aspects of social relationships: (a) whether you had high or low levels of social support and (b) whether you had social integration.
Social support refers to the psychological and practical or material resources provided by a social network to help individuals cope with stress. There is a strong link between social relationships and many different aspects of health and wellness. These relationships play a critical role in how you function in your day-to-day life.
Evidence from the Harvard Grant study (spanning 80 years) showed that the most important component of a long and happy life is having good positive relationships and that this also helped to delay both mental and physical decline for the men in the study.
Working within ambulance, we know that it is social support that assists people in the first instance after a significant life event or critical incident. However, the types of reactions and/or responses that we may experience after such events can mean that we withdraw from social support.
Action 1: Pay attention to each other to ensure that we remain connected in various ways and broaden your social networks both in and out of the workplace.
It is also well evidenced that in your workplaces, if you experience emotional support from your team or colleagues, it creates a buffer effect from work-related stress and better job satisfaction compared to employees who have poor team cohesion or social support. Morale is also higher in cohesive teams because of increased team member communication, friendly team environment, loyalty and team member contribution in the decision-making process.
Action 2: To enhance team cohesion in your current work group and create a greater sense of wellbeing and belonging at work, be proactive in creating positive workplace relationships.
A very poignant issue relevant to both our clinical health professionals and Emergency Medical Dispatchers is when you have been involved in an adverse patient event, medical error and/or a patient related injury and experience trauma reactions as a result. There may be a feeling of being personally responsible for the patient outcome. You could feel that you have failed the patient or be second guessing your clinical skills or knowledge base. In these instances,
ultimately, social support was the most
important variable in determining whether a clinician would drop out, merely survive the experience, or experience post traumatic growth due to the struggle and thrive.4 Social integration refers to how much you interact with people as you move through your day and it has a protective benefit. Building this interaction into our workplace bolsters the immune system, sends good hormones surging through the bloodstream and brain and helps you live longer.
Greater social support has been linked to a lower risk for cancer recurrence, higher survival rates among heart attack survivors, lower blood pressure, better immune responses, and better psychological wellbeing. In contrast, poor social support has been linked to depression and loneliness and has been shown to alter brain function and increase the risk of alcohol use, cardiovascular disease, depression and suicide. Reflecting on this past year in 2020 with COVID-19, there may never have been another time in most of our lives where we have experienced the significant impacts of social isolation.
Did you know that you experience pain when you experience social rejection?
We know that pain is a necessary function that warns the body of potential or actual injury. Historically, the denial of access to social groups was a powerful means of punishment as it often meant death. In a 2011 paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, a team of researchers showed that responses to social rejection and physical pain share similar neurochemical pathways. Consistent with this research, it was found that in conditions of social pain there is activation of an area within your brain that is traditionally associated with the sensory processing of physical pain.
The amount of social support provided during a socially painful event reduces activity in these brain pain-related areas. It is thought that the body’s opioids are released to lessen the pain of social rejection, much as they do during physical injury.
Social isolation can lead to feelings of fear of others, negative self-esteem or loneliness. This epidemic of loneliness has soared in recent times, which has resulted in the United Kingdom appointing a Minister for Loneliness. Evidence suggests that a significant number of individuals, at least in developed countries, are lonely.
Ironically, if you are feeling lonely, you are not alone. A significant study looking at loneliness within communities found that there is a contagion effect. As people start to perceive that they are lonely, they start to isolate and therefore reduce the number of social networks and connectivity. It was also shown that a level of distrust starts to emerge the greater the time that people remain isolated and alone. In our workplaces, we are often vulnerable to situations that may see us isolated or feeling that we may be on the periphery of social groups.
Action 3: If you notice this in yourself or see it in others, it is the perfect time to provide support so that the social engagement occurs and therefore assists with a feeling of safety.
Loneliness may increase inflammation. People who reported being lonely had higher biomarkers of inflammation, increased activity of inflammatory genes and reduced activity of anti-viral genes. It causes increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, particularly stress hormones. It affects cognition and you have a 40 per cent greater risk of dementia. It is intuitive because in the past, the feeling of loneliness would signify something dire, that you were isolated and were therefore at risk.
Social connection undoes these effects
and protects our health and wellbeing in numerous ways and increases resilience to stress and trauma. The parasympathetic system inhibits some of the sympathetic system responses, fostering calm behavioural states that enhance connection to other humans so they can soothe and support and help regulate our nervous system.
Benefits of social connectedness
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
8. 9. Boosts your mental health Increased feelings of belonging Purpose Increased levels of happiness Reduced levels of stress Improved self-worth and confidence Helps you live longer–individuals with strong social relationships–50 per cent increase likelihood of survival Decreases your risk of suicide Improves your quality of life.
What stops social connection?
When we return to our evolutionary roots and feel threatened, we will utilise the other fight/flight and immobilisation pathways rather than socially engage (known as the polyvagal theory). Forming strong healthy relationships with others means opening up, actively listening and being open to sharing what you’re going through. Mindfulness is evidenced to assist with this process. It improves memory, creativity, and our moods, as well as relationships, health, and longevity in general.5
Practicing mindfulness improves connectivity inside the brain’s networks that keeps us from being distracted and maintains calm and therefore a sense of safety. When you trigger feelings of safety, the autonomic nervous system can restore your physical and psychological health.
Social connectedness is a key aspect of development and an important construct in the understanding of human development. Social connectedness as a construct is receiving increasing attention across a number of disciplines, and researchers are exploring what it means to be socially connected. As we learn more about the neuroscience of our brains–the evidence is clearly emerging about the importance of social connectedness to both our physical and psychological wellbeing. There is great power in human relationships and we can increase social connection through our compassion for others and compassion for self.
Social connection tells our brain that we matter! We don’t feel the pain of social rejection and we feel more positive and healthy. As managers and colleagues, you may not have recognised that all of the times that you have provided support and shown genuine care and concern, you have assisted in creating such social connectedness and safety.
Priority One is your staff support service that can provide confidential support and help to connect you, your families, your colleagues and your team or staff members to the most appropriate support.
Where do I find help?
24-hour telephone counselling
1800 805 980
QAS Priority One State Office
3635 3333
LGBTIQ+ support service
3830 5888
Chaplaincy service
0439 788 485 or Office 3835 9923
Local Priority One Peer Support Officers or Counsellors
See list in each QAS Station or on QASPortal References:
1. Haslam, S.A., McMahon, C., Cruwys, T., Haslam, C., Greenaway, K., Jetten, J., and Steffens, N. K. (2018). Social cure, what social cure? The propensity to underestimate the importance of social factors for health. Social Science and Medicine, 198, 14-21
2. Pinker, Susan (2015). The Village Effect: How face-to-face contact can make us healthier and happier. Penguin Random House
3. Baumeister, R. F., and Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529
4. Dekker, Sidney (2013). Second Victim: Error, Guilt, Trauma, and Resilience. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group
5. Siegel, Daniel J. (2007). The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the cultivation of Well-Being. W.W Norton and Company, London
Other sources:
Haslam, C., Jetten, J., Cruwys, T., Dingle, G., and Haslam, S.A. (2018). The New Psychology of Health: Unlocking the Social Cure. Taylor and Francis Ltd
Holt-Lunstad J., Smith T. B., Layton J. B. (2010). Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Med 7(7): e1000316
The Secret to living longer may be your social life–TED Talk–Susan Pinker
Doidge, Norman (2015). The Brain’s Way of Healing. Scribe London
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/ story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-yearsharvard-study-has-been-showing-howto-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ article?id=10.1371/journal. pmed.1000316
https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_ pinker_the_secret_to_living_longer_ may_be_your_social_life
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ us/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/theneuroscience-social-pain
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ smart-news/minister-lonelinessappointed-united-kingdom180967883/#:~:text=The%20 United%20Kingdom%E2%80%99s%20 Prime%20Minister%20Theresa%20 May%20has,social%20and%20 health%20issues%20caused%20 by%20social%20isolation.
KJM recipients receive grants at online event
The KJ McPherson Education and Research Foundation (KJM Foundation) Patron’s Day had a slightly different twist this year, with the event being conducted on 6 October as an online workshop and grants presentation due to COVID-19.
At the event, screened live from Kedron’s Emergency Services Headquarters, nine operational QAS officers received grants, with the funds set to assist them in conducting research and education projects or professional development activities that will benefit patient care and ambulance services.
The topics that recipients will research include falls management and prevention, business continuity in the absence of computer aided dispatch, infection prevention and control, traumatic brain injury care and extreme environment paramedicine in order to create better patient outcomes and safer environments for ambulance staff.
In addition, eight students from Griffith University, Central Queensland University and the Queensland University of Technology received grants across two categories–each category had a winner and a runner-up–for their research papers or posters. Named after Kenneth James (Jim) McPherson, a Queensland ambulance officer who lost his life in an aerial ambulance crash in Bundaberg in 1987, the KJM Foundation is a not-forprofit entity dedicated to improving patient care by providing research and professional development opportunities for uniformed personnel. Today the Foundation serves as a memorial to all officers of the QAS who have lost their lives in the line of duty since 1892.
Commissioner Russell Bowles congratulated staff on their continued growth and motivation toward improving prehospital care in Queensland.
“We encourage our staff to be innovative in their approach toward enhancing prehospital care and the QAS has always prided itself on being leaders in our field, contributing to improved clinical outcomes for our patients,” Commissioner Bowles said.
“The staff awarded grants are doing the QAS proud by undertaking these fantastic research projects.
“The late Jim McPherson was very dedicated in his commitment to training, education and research, so it’s very fitting that the foundation commemorating him is contributing toward QAS staff training.
“I’m excited at the prospect of what
our recipients will do with their research grants and how that will affect the ongoing drive of our people KJ McPherson Education & Research Foundation to advance modern medicine.” Supporting Pre-Hospital Care, Research and Education
Foundation simplifies and modernises logo
The KJ McPherson Education and Research Foundation (KJM) is The KJM Foundation is proud to be supporting QAS uniformed officers with their research and development projects. KJM exists to contribute to the ongoing development of Queensland Ambulance Service staff through strong support for research and education.
extremely appreciative Going forward, KJM aims to evolve as a vibrant and dynamic research and education foundation supporting contemporary needs of Queensland Ambulance staff.
of our
sponsors’ support.It is in this context that KJM has modernised and simplified its logo. This will be the KJM logo going forward. The logo has evolved to support the KJM values going forward which are:
Background
Compassion for our patients, for QAS staff and for each other
Exploration through stringent research to maintain currency and relevance
Knowledge gained through ongoing education and personal development
Scholarship driven by individuals’ professional approach to career and lifelong learning
Equity underpinning our actions and decisions
In a symbolic way KJM has adopted these icons to represent the values above and these will appear from time to time on our KJM documentation on the web and other places. Guests attending the workshop and grants
presentation at Kedron’s Emergency Services Headquarters.
All photos (except for photo of 2020 grant recipients at top, second from left): Amy WIlde
Grant
Patron’s Research Grant
Dr Peter Stephenson Overseas Study Grant Winners
Kim Harting
Barrie Barker Rohan Roylance Ursula Howarth Hayley Grant Kelsie Herbert Steve Whitfield Julie Hughes Jamie Leonard Alice Hurley Rhoda Thornton Jade Bailey, Katrina Promnitz, Veneesha Robertson, Kitouli Wood Simone Evans & Alexandra Rengers
Project/Activity
The role of the ambulance service in falls management and falls prevention (a system response to falls) Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) in the operational environment Understanding how NSW Ambulance Service maintains business continuity in the absence of computer aided dispatch Bi-annual global four-day Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) conference in Geneva, Switzerland Prehospital Traumatic Brain Injury Care Expedition and Wilderness Medicine Course Extreme Environment Paramedicine – Paramedics in Space Basic Echocardiography in Life Support one-day course Gold Coast Combined Nebulised Therapy in the Treatment of Smoke Inhalation; the use of Heparin, N-acetylcysteine and Albuterol Secondary Postpartum Haemorrhage: An Expository Essay and Clinical Management Plan for Prehospital Medicine Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survival Factors Is there such a thing as too much Empathy?
LASN
Townsville
Bundaberg LAC State Operations Grant
Metro North State Operations
KJM Overseas Study Grant
Centre
QAS Research & Development Grant
South West
ACP Professional Development Grant
Brodie Taylor Professional Development Grant QAS Professional Development Grant United Workers Union Graduate of the Year Grant
Metro North Mackay
Gold Coast
Metro North
Townsville Central Queensland Metro South Gold Coast Gold Coast
Sponsor
Stryker Australia
Dr Peter Stephenson Bundaberg Local Ambulance Committee
KJM Foundation
Spectrum Data Systems International Australasian College of Paramedicine Brodie Taylor Laerdal United Worker’s Union Australasian College of Paramedicine Australasian College of Paramedicine Australasian College of Paramedicine Australasian College of Paramedicine
Amount
Mentored research opportunity
$5,500
$5,000
$5500
$3,000
$2,000 $2000 $1500
Australasian College of Paramedicine Student Scientific Grant
ACP Best Paper
ACP Best Paper Runner-Up
ACP Best Poster
ACP Best Poster Runner-Up
$1000 $600
$400
$600
$400
Top, from left to right
Narangba ACP Barrie Barker was the recipient of the Dr Peter Stephenson Overseas
Study Grant.
The 2020 grant recipients with QAS
Commissioner Russell Bowles, KJM Foundation
Patron Major‑General Emeritus Professor
John Pearn AO RFD, KJM Foundation
President Gerard Lawler and the sponsors at
Kedron’s Emergency Services Headquarters.
Photo: Jo Mitchell
