90: Rebuilding Belonging: The Power of Strengthening Our Social Muscles

Our latest LiveWell podcast episode features an inspiring and deeply insightful conversation with Kasley Killam, a leading expert in social health and author of The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier Lives. Kasley shares her personal journey from being a curious psychology student to becoming a nationally recognized voice on the power of human connection. Drawing from her work with Social Health Labs, global field research, and her own experiences as an empath and introvert, Kasley explores why social health is emerging as a critical pillar of well-being alongside physical and mental health.

Her insights are grounded in both research and lived experience—from her transformative “108 Days of Kindness” project to her work with cities like Barcelona and Paris to strengthen community connection. Throughout the episode, Kasley highlights the urgent need to rebuild social ties in a time of widespread loneliness, and she offers practical, hopeful pathways forward.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Kasley discovered “social health” and why it is becoming a global movement
• Her four strategies for strengthening our “social muscles”
•  The 5-3-1 guideline for building meaningful and sustainable relationships
• The influence of built environments—from LA to Bhutan—on our ability to connect
• How students and communities can create a culture of belonging
•  The role of AI in modern connection, and why diversity of social ties matters
• The power of intentionality, kindness, and community-led initiatives in creating a thriving society

Whether you’re a student, educator, policymaker, or anyone searching for ways to strengthen your connections and improve well-being, this episode offers actionable tools, uplifting stories, and a powerful vision for a more connected world.

Resources:

Book: https://www.kasleykillam.com/social-health-book

Website: https://www.kasleykillam.com/

Listen now and subscribe for more stories that challenge conventional thinking and inspire holistic well-being.

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Transcript

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 0:18

Welcome, Kasley Killiam. We're so excited to have you on our Live Well podcast. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

Kasley Killiam: 0:28

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 0:31

Yeah, me too. I wanted to introduce you to our listeners. Kasley is a leading expert in social health and author of The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier and Happier Lives. In addition to that, she's a graduate from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and founder of the social health labs, collaborated with private and government organizations to improve well being through human connection. She also received, in 2024, the UCLA Eudaimonia Award, which is an award that honors somebody who lives a life of meaning and purpose, and a commitment to doing the greater good. She spoke at our ceremony almost a year ago, and we're so grateful to have been introduced to her through that award ceremony, and we're here today to learn more from Kasley as we interview her for the next hour or so. Where do we begin? Maybe with your life story and your personal story. What sparked your interest in social health, and how did you come to dedicate your career to this field?

Kasley Killiam: 1:34

Yeah, it really starts from the beginning. I've always been someone who is fascinated by people, fascinated by psychology, by human connection, relationships, what drives people. I've always been someone who loves to observe and people watch and try to understand. I am very much an empath, so feeling other people's emotions and empathizing with their stories is something that comes very intrinsically to me. So over the years, you know, I explored this theme of social health and connection on a personal level, as an introvert, trying to understand how to thrive as an introvert who needs to balance socializing with solitude, moving around to different cities and different countries and needing to rebuild community and make new friends from scratch and so on. These various personal experiences really kind of struck a chord and made me fascinated by human connection. Then, when I found studies actually examining the health impact of our relationships, and learned more about the science of empathy and compassion and connection, and how vital it is for us to live good lives, meaningful lives, but also healthy, long lives. I was just absolutely fascinated, and more specifically, when I came across this term "social health" in the literature, it was an epiphany moment for me. I thought, wow, this is the language that really captures the significance of human connection for our health, and yet, it wasn't a term that I could find much on right at that time, over 10 years ago. This really wasn't a well known concept, and it's still to this day, emerging, and I was really interested in that, interested in how to elevate and lift up this idea of social health and help spread it, and spread tools that help us all live more meaningfully connected lives.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 3:36

Yeah, I listened to your TED talk, and you talk about the three legged stool of sorts, I suppose. In the first two legs, physical and mental health, you said now we need to really be focused on that third leg that holds up the stool, which would be social health.

Kasley Killiam: 3:51

Yes, exactly! So the way I think about it is like a stool, or, I think I use the analogy temple, right? These different pillars, or these different legs of the stool, these pillars of the temple that are lifting up our overall health and well being. We have put great emphasis on the physical and mental pillars in recent years, rightly so, because they're vital. But, this social health pillar has really been overlooked and underappreciated, and now we're at this kind of pivotal turning point in the history of how we understand health, where we now have decades of research showing that people with strong relationships, whether that's with friends or family or co-workers or neighbors, a strong sense of community. They actually live longer lives, they actually have a lower risk for diseases and illness, and so we have this kind of strong foundation of research, but it hasn't yet caught up with the language that we're using to talk about health, and that's where I'm really passionate about spreading this idea of social health. Your health isn't just physical and mental, like we've traditionally talked about. It's also social, and in order to thrive and be healthy and live well, we need to really invest in our relationships, and prioritize connection, just like we do exercise or nutrition or these other components that contribute to our health. And so that's really the mission that I'm on: bringing more attention to the importance of social health, and then making it a priority for us as individuals, but also throughout our society.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 5:24

I can't imagine a better messenger, especially when you refer to yourself as an introvert and say you understand some of the challenges that may lay ahead for some of these people.

Kasley Killiam: 5:37

For sure, yeah! I'm never going to tell people you have to just socialize all the time. That is not the point. It's about connection in ways that are meaningful for you. And introverts know that, right? We need alone time. We value it. It's exhausting to be around people all the time. If you're more introverted, that doesn't mean you don't need connection, though, and so it's about finding the ways that are right for you.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 6:01

Your point to how science is now leading people to understand the benefits of social well being in terms of your current health, but also your longevity. There was a really sentinel study about a decade ago when you started, that talked about how the best predictors of longevity in the United States were related to social well being, your senses, like your hearing and your vision and your sense of smell, and not having broken a bone after the age of 50 or something. But you know, all of those interrelate though, right? You're going to be more likely to engage with the outer world and so forth. The pieces of the puzzle just all aligned towards this connection that we need to have with each other, and mentioned your moving around and being an introvert, and how that rebuilding community---that was almost your own personal challenge. I guess when you were doing those moves, you talk about the 108 days of kindness journey. Was that one of your strategies towards connecting, tell me about that?

Kasley Killiam: 7:07

So the 108 Days Project was actually something I did in my final semester as an undergrad student. I was at Queen's University in Canada, studying psychology, and it was something I did outside of school as a personal experiment because I was thinking about my values and actually putting them into practice. And I wanted to know, what would it look like and feel like if I really prioritized kindness and connection every single day and actually made it a priority. You know, I said, this is something I care about, but am I actually living that? And so for 108 days, I challenged myself to do an act of kindness every single day, and these varied a lot. Some were really simple things, like writing thank you cards or leaving kind notes for people, or opening the door for someone, right? Simple things like that, but some of them were more extravagant and fun. So for example, on day 50, I believe, I recruited some friends and we stood on the street in downtown Toronto and handed out helium balloons just for happiness. It was incredible to see people's expressions. I have this vivid memory of watching a little boy next to a man in a suit who had obviously just come from his business job, both of them carrying helium balloons down the street. And also, on day 100, I recruited another friend, and we made these signs that said, "Feeling stressed about exams? Have a free hug," and we stood outside the campus library. And that was an example where at first I was thinking, what have I gotten myself into? Like, why am I doing this? It was my idea to do, and I was just dreading it, because it's such an extroverted thing to do. And can I tell you, it was probably two of the best hours of my life. It was so much fun seeing people's reactions. Some people didn't want to hug and they'd just walk by, but a lot of people would leap into our arms or tell us how much it meant to them. It was just so energizing and fun. And so what I found over the course of those 108 days was that my social health absolutely improved. I wasn't using that term at the time. I hadn't yet found it, but it absolutely did. I made new friends, I deepened my existing relationships with family and with my community. It was such a noticeable difference on that front, but also my physical and mental health improved as well. I've never felt so happy and energized and alive. Because I was so energized, I did a better job of things like cooking healthy meals or being consistent about exercise. I actually got the highest GPA of any semester of my entire education career, that semester, and I think it's because when I needed to focus to study, I did it, and the rest of the time I felt so alive. So, it really had all these reciprocal, beautiful, unexpected ripple effects and benefits throughout my life. It led to job opportunities and all kinds of interesting things, so it was really transformative. And what it showed me was that, more than anything, the opportunities for connection are all around us at all times, and we just need to pay attention to them. We just need to tune in and actually look through the lens of social health to see where there are ways that we can extend kindness to someone or reach out and connect. And it doesn't have to be holding a sign outside your library, but it can just be more mindful in the interactions that you're having in your day to day.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 10:55

It reminds me of when I'd be traveling with my young children and they were grumpy, it's early in the morning, and I'd say, okay, we're here in this airport. Everyone else woke up really early to go to work, and they're here for us. Let's see how many people we could make smile. And so their grumpiness went away because they started focusing, and we kept track, I made it a little competitive, of course, and it was really fun, and it really uplifted us, but also I feel like it uplifted the people that we were interacting with. And I'm wondering, what was the surprising reaction that you had from people that you were doing random acts of kindness, potentially in those 108 days?

Kasley Killiam: 11:42

Oh gosh, there were so many. It's funny, I haven't shared the URL, but there's still a blog online. I kept a blog at the time with all the different stories, but I go back every now and then and read some of the stories, and it's very uplifting. One of the things that was most surprising to me actually, not in a positive way, but in an eye opening way. There was one day where I put sticky notes in the women's bathroom on campus with nice, kind words, reaffirming words, just nice sticky notes on the mirror. And by chance, I went back later that afternoon. I'd kind of forgotten about it, but I actually had to go use that bathroom, and someone had responded to one of the sticky notes, saying, "I feel so alone here. No one looks me in the eye, and it's so hard to make friends." And it just like jolted me. It pierced a sword in my heart, because here was someone saying, I am finding it so hard to connect and thrive in this environment. And I remember I wrote back and responded and said, "Here's my phone number. I'd love to hang out and connect." I never heard from whoever it was, but for weeks after that, I would walk around campus and look at every single person who I passed next to and wonder, like, what is their internal experience right now? I think people can feel disconnected and we don't even know they can be highly functioning and smiling and putting on the appearances and yet feel really isolated or lonely. So that was a very eye opening reaction to where it made me realize actually the importance of what I was doing that much more. Some of the acts were really playful, some were more serious, but that, to me, showed that it really matters that we are reaching out to each other and building cultures of connection,

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 13:39

I really like the way you responded, and in the language like you mentioned, you're also an empath, but you also act, so that's more on the compassionate side, right? So you're not just holding that sadness or pain that you might have felt when you read that, but you're actually wrote a response. And I think that's a really great distinction: you recognizing people's pain or recognizing a circumstance is important, but to sit there isn't going to get you anywhere. It's really the compassionate action that you might take, and it doesn't mean you have to, but that you care.

Kasley Killiam: 14:17

Yeah, I love that, and I also think it applies to our own suffering as well. So if someone's listening and you're feeling isolated or lonely or disconnected, first of all, that's so valid. We all experience that at different times, and after giving yourself permission to feel that and give that compassion to yourself, there's also a lot you can do, and what I've learned in studying the science of loneliness and connection is that sometimes the best way to get out of a state of disconnection is to do something kind for someone else. And it sounds a little bit ironic, but actually, when we volunteer, or when we do an act of kindness for someone else, the intention is to benefit them, but it ends up benefiting us as well. And so that's something that I would invite everyone to think about, that reaching out to help others is wonderful, but it can also be really beneficial for you and for each of us.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 15:20

And in a way, that's what you have spoken about, the importance of stretching and flexing our social muscles through that. Can you explain what this means and provide some practical examples in daily life?

Kasley Killiam: 15:32

Yeah, absolutely. Kind of building on this idea that connection is as important as exercise, I came up with these four strategies for how to strengthen your social muscles. And the first strategy is to stretch your social muscles. So just like we stretch our physical muscles to become more flexible, stretching your social muscles means that you need more connection, right? You want more connection, new friends, new communities. So this is about increasing the quantity of connection in your life. So stretching your social muscles might be going to an event and striking out conversation with someone new, or attending a club for the first time to try and build community there, right? These kinds of acts we can do to make new friends and increase connection in our lives. The second strategy is to rest our social muscles. And this one might surprise people, but if you think about it, when we're exercising, we need to rest our physical muscles too. It's really important for recuperating, for rejuvenating, for internalizing a workout we might have done. We need rest physically. We need rest socially as well. So maybe you're someone who has a lot of connection already, or you have a lot of friends, or you see people all the time, and actually what you need is more alone time, or to just double down on the people who are most important to you, and not stretch yourself so thin. The third strategy is to tone your social muscles. So this is about deepening the relationships that you already have, right? Just like toning your physical muscles is making them stronger. So this is through things like expressing gratitude or making sure that you have deeper conversations, by asking more questions and listening deeply. That's some ways that you can tone your social muscles, and then the last and final strategy is to flex your social muscles. So this is about sustaining your relationships, so things like scheduling regular hangouts, or making sure that once a week you call your grandmother, or whatever it might be, so making sure that connection is really consistent. And I think it's helpful to just think about being intentional about our social muscles, just like we might be our physical bodies.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 17:50

I love that. It does sound like a great analogy around exercising, and using the word muscle, it will help remind us. I noticed in your TED Talk, you talk about the 531 to the listeners, because that might help people track their stretching and flexing.

Kasley Killiam: 18:12

Absolutely, so the 531 guideline is meant to give people a starting point. What I've heard from people in the course of many years working in this space, is that they want some sort of metric to begin with, right? We have guidelines like walking 10,000 steps a day or getting eight hours of sleep, and so the 531 guideline is that for social health. So the intention is to aim to connect with at least five different people each week to cultivate at least three close relationships and to spend one hour a day connecting. So five different people each week, because diversity of interaction and the people who we keep close is important. Three close relationships, so a few people who you can really go deeper with, who know you well, who really there is your support system, and then one hour a day of meaningful connection, and so again, that's kind of a number. Those are numbers inspired by the research to give people a starting point, but ultimately, based on your personality, your preferences, what's the exact number that is right for you might vary, but that can help anchor your actions and guide you in getting started.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 19:26

That's super helpful for someone like me. I like having goals like that, so thank you for that. You mentioned you're an empath, you're an introvert, but also you have a way, or at least you've developed a way of identifying social health styles that probably also would influence this 531. You identify yourself as a firefly, and I'd like to understand more about these styles and the understanding of a style and what that means in terms of relationships.

Kasley Killiam: 19:58

Sure. So, what I found is that the research does a really great job of exploring extroversion and introversion, right? And this is really about the quantity of interaction that's fulfilling to each of us. So if you're an introvert like me, you actually need less time with other people to feel fulfilled. If you're an extrovert, you're someone who's really energized by being around people a lot, by having lots of friends, being very social. So that captures the quantity, but what about the type of connection? Right? Because some people gravitate very naturally toward deep conversations, and I'm one of those people where I don't want to have small talk, I don't want to chit chat, I want to get straight into who you really are, what's really going on for you. Why do you care about the things that you care about? Like, that's so much more energizing to me, whereas other people are much more comfortable, kind of with the small talk, right? It takes longer for them to warm up and open up, and that's okay, too. It's just different styles and approaches to how we connect, and so I created this grid that has these four different styles. So, a butterfly is someone who likes a lot of casual connection. A wallflower is someone who likes a little bit of casual connection. A f irefly is someone who likes a little bit of deep connection, and then evergreen loves a lot of deep connection. And it's been really interesting to hear from readers and explore these different styles more. I think what they do is help give us a better understanding for our own preferences and what we're looking for in relationships, and also helps us understand other people better, too. And I was fortunate to collaborate with the New York Times. They decided to do a quiz based on these four styles, which was quite popular. And so it's been great to hear from readers and see people's reactions to that, and a lot of fun. But I think this kind of framework is just really meant to help people reflect what's fulfilling to you. What are your habits around connection, and how might you optimize those even further?

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 22:09

Yeah, it's nice to have insight on your needs and understand what you need and act on it. And we've talked a lot now about the individual, and you also delve into the environment, and the built environment in particular, and reflect on the number of your trips and living experiences in different cultures and cities and so forth. And I'd like to dive deeper into Los Angeles. And Mike Davis, a sociologist and urban theorist, argues that Los Angeles is characterized by a fragmented urban landscape where private spaces dominate and public spaces are diminished, which leads to a lack of communal areas where people from different backgrounds can interact. I'd like to know, in your opinion, how does this design of a city affect the ability to gather in communal settings, and in particular in a city like our sprawling city of Los Angeles?

Kasley Killiam: 23:05

Yeah, first I'll say, you're right that it's really important to zoom out from the individual as well. And coming from a public health background, I think about what are all the influences that contribute to our social health, not just the actions that we as individuals take, but the city that we live in, the communities that we're part of, the policies in our government that might downstream influence our social health, really taking all of that context into account. That inspired a lot of my interest in the built environment and the spaces that we occupy each day, and how those influence our connection. And I'll tell you, I've lived in LA for three years now, and I find it extremely hard to be socially healthy in LA, because there is such sprawl, right? I have friends who you know, to spend time with them, I'm looking at three hours round trip of being in my car stuck in traffic, and that is a very real barrier to connection and to nurturing friendships and relationships, and that's very unique to LA, right? It's huge. It's sprawling. It's very car dependent. Some of the research that I did while doing my Masters was focused on, what are the design elements in a given place that contribute to our social health? Walkability is one of the number one things, right? When you have a neighborhood or a community where you can walk around, where you're not dependent on cars, where there's green spaces and plants around, those are more conducive to us connecting, to us bumping into a neighbor and striking up conversation. So I think there's a lot about the design of LA that makes it really challenging. What I will say, though, is that it's not just about having shared kind of community places where we can gather. It's also about bringing those to life, because you can have a beautiful park, but if no one goes and uses it, or if there aren't activities or programming that then bring it to life and give people an excuse to go and meet new people and bring friends and be in community, then that place doesn't matter, ultimately. So there's these different layers. First, we have to be thoughtful about how we build communities, and then we need to really invest in maintaining those, making sure they're safe, making sure they're usable. And then we need to make sure that we activate them, that we bring them to life through activities and programming, and really support community builders who want to take initiative and make that happen. So I think it's all those different levels, and LA is a challenging case, but we can also look around the world to examples of how there's a lot of innovation in urban development and in the ways that cities are being designed. I had the pleasure last year of visiting Bhutan, which is a very small country in the Himalayan Mountains. And they are building a new city from scratch, and it is designed with all the kinds of principles that you at UCLA talk about a lot for how to live well, right? Mindfulness and community, social health is a big piece of it, green space, walkability, all these things. And so they're able to, from scratch say, let's actually build in these values into the place. But if you're living in LA, like we are, we can't --- we don't have that luxury of starting from the ground up. So it's instead, how do we replenish and bring to life and actually use the spaces where we are?

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 26:48

Yeah, I love your example of Bhutan, and I'm wondering if you'd like to share your experiences in Barcelona or Paris, because I think those might be more applicable to us here in Los Angeles.

Kasley Killiam: 27:02

Absolutely, so Barcelona was a really interesting case, and, I met with their city council when I was researching for the book, because they, at that time, had a city wide loneliness strategy. And I was so interested to learn more, a fascinating experience. And I encourage people to read that part of the book, because there were so many interesting insights from our conversation. But what stood out to me was first that Barcelona is already designed with kind of natural town squares, for lack of a better word, that are kind of all over. And so there are these organic places already that exist. And so the focus was really on bringing those to life, more investing in the community organizations and the community leaders who were bringing them to life, providing government support, spreading awareness, really kind of reinvesting in the social fabric of Barcelona, because so much was in place. Paris, in contrast, was a very interesting example. I met with this group called the Republic of Super Neighbors. Wonderful group, also one of my favorite parts of the book. So I encourage people to read that story. But they got together and said, we are going to make it so that in our little district, in our little neighborhood of Paris, everyone says hello. Everyone says Bonjour and gets to know each other. And they started by setting up this table that was the length of one of the streets, and over 1000 people showed up, and they shared a meal together, and they got to know each other. And then that initial kind of community gathering spawned all of these other initiatives. They have Whatsapp group to organize over who's bringing in fresh fish this week and who's going to help Miriam when she comes home from the hospital next week. And they have all kinds of community events. They partnered with the city of Paris to refurbish some of the communal gathering spaces to be able to activate them even more. I mean, they've really transformed their little pocket of Paris just through intentionality and through programming and through taking initiative. So I love that example because it shows the power of a few motivated people getting together and saying, hey, we want to change the cultural norms in our community, and then actually making it happen.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 29:23

I think your point of activation and identifying spaces that are there is a really great model for places like Los Angeles. And Jaime Lerner, the architect urban planner, did just that in Brazil, and he called it urban acupuncture, which is a form. So you activate one area, and just like you described that big meal, activated all sorts of other parts of the system of social connection.

Kasley Killiam: 29:53

I was just in Brazil two weeks ago, and they have a main park in Sao Paulo that I went to on a Saturday, and I've never seen so many people in one park, so many people gathering, going for walks with friends, playing sports, having picnics. Talk about using a public space for social health. It was just an incredible example.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 30:17

Yeah, I love that. And so really drilling down to UCLA and our campus, which is really a microcosm of Los Angeles, one of the areas that we have really been focusing on a lot is the sense of belonging, which, of course, has a lot to do with connection. And I would love to hear from you. We had this social recession post-covid. I think we're coming a bit out of it, but with the methods that you've seen in other cities and your own work from the public health perspective, what would you recommend to jumpstart something on a university campus?

Kasley Killiam: 30:58

Yeah, well, first, I'll just say belonging is such an important part of social health. And kind of the way I define social health is the dimension of our overall health and well being that comes from connection and community. So it's not just our one on one relationships. It's also feeling like we're part of something bigger. And I think a university campus and a university culture can really be part of that, and all the little pockets within it, things like the band or the improv team or the sports teams, whatever clubs people are part of, those provide community. And then there's the overall UCLA campus, which in itself is a community with certain values and norms and so on. We could spend hours talking about about this question, but I think one component that's really important is actually empowering students themselves to take initiatives in the ways that feel right to them. You know, Gen Z is a different generation. They have different norms and interests and so on. And so rather than us as as millennials or other generations dictating how they should feel a sense of belonging, I think it really needs to be co created, right? Co-creating that culture, asking students, empowering them to take initiative. Through my nonprofit social health labs, we've given away $1,000 micro grants to community builders across the US. I would love to see universities do a micro version of that, where it's small grants. It could be even less than that, 250, 500, 2 students who have ideas for how to bring people together on campus and how to create that culture of belonging. I think having it be student led and student informed is so key to it actually being successful.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 32:49

Yeah, right on. I'm with you on that. The answers come from the communities. And speaking of the here and the now, and thinking about your 531 recommendation, where do you see AI integrate into even meeting the five of your 531, and then also, what are your excitements, but also

Kasley Killiam: 33:13

Yes. So, we are definitely seeing people use AI your fears? as one of their weekly five, and at the time when I was researching for the book, I started kind of a deep dive on exploring how people are using AI for companionship, and was pretty shocked at that time. That was at the time when I was actually researching that, it was two or three years ago. I mean, this was before the Chat GPT boom, and kind of the current world that we're living in where you can't walk 10 feet without hearing someone talk about AI. And at that time, already, there were products, AI products, selling kind of companionship services that had hundreds of millions of users around the world. And we are way past the point of this being something in the future, it's very much here. So to your point about AI being one of the five, I do think there can be a role for AI being one of the sources that we turn to for support and connection, one of them. And let me qualify this, what the research shows is that being socially healthy includes having diverse social ties, having a variety of people and communities that we can turn to, friends, your romantic partner, family, co workers, neighbors and maybe AI is one of them. In the middle of the night when you can't sleep and you just want to ask some questions, or, like all your loved ones are asleep, maybe that's a time when you turn to AI. I'm not convinced that's entirely a bad thing. I think there can be a role for that, if it's ONE of the sources. Where I get really concerned, is when AI friends and AI lovers are people's only, or main source of social health, where it becomes the main or only place that they are turning to to feel connected. And we are seeing this a lot, and we could have a conversation about whether AI should be designed to be used that way or not, but I think we're way past that. I actually think the more important question is, what's wrong in our environment and in our world and in our cultures that's making people feel like they have to turn to AI as their sole or main source of connection, right? There is deep loneliness that is driving some of those use cases, and so I'm really interested in, how do we prevent that from being a necessity, right? If it's an option that's available to you, great, but I don't want anyone to feel like their only source of connection, the only way that they can feel seen and heard and loved and cared about and valued, is turned into AI. And so this is going to be something that we're going to be figuring out for a long time to come. I think we're actually just at the very beginning of this.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 36:12

It's almost thinking of it as a nutritional diet, right? Or nutritional recommendation. You can't just live on sugar or just live on vegetables. You need a variety to be able to sustain your physical health and emotional and social food.

Kasley Killiam: 36:30

Exactly. Yeah, and I think social media, for a long time, has been a source of empty calories. It's been a source of the popcorn and the chips and the chocolate that we enjoy, but that aren't necessarily nutritious in the ways that we need. And now AI is just adding on another element to that. And so, yeah, it's a new territory we're entering into.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 36:54

You just made me think of something. It's not processed food, it's processed social.

Kasley Killiam: 37:01

Exactly, and the research is really new on this right? There's studies coming out saying it can be beneficial in certain ways, and it's not it's like where we were 10 plus years ago with social media, where we just weren't sure where it was going to land. That's where we are today with AI.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 37:21

Maybe we should have social well being labels like food labels. You're only getting 10% of your social well being from the Instagram account you have or something like that. Moving on to your keynote that you had, your Google keynote, you spoke on this idea that mental health has been popularized by millennials and Gen Z. Can you explain to our listeners how you believe a movement like this is emerging for social well being?

Kasley Killiam: 38:00

Sure, so the way I see it, is that over time, obviously over the course of humanity, our understanding of health has continually evolved. More recently, in the last kind of 10 to 20 years, certainly over the course of my lifetime, we've seen mental health really emerge and rise up to become part of the mainstream. I mean, over the course of my life, it's gone from something that's very taboo, very swept under the rug, to something that everyone my age and younger talks about openly. There is a whole industry around mental health innovation and solutions. We hear politicians talk about mental health, celebrities talk about mental health. It is part of our culture now and today social health is where mental health was 10 to 20 years ago, so where it's certain pockets of people are talking about it, but it hasn't yet entered the mainstream completely, but that is changing, and it is changing very quickly, and it's so exciting, it just makes me get up with even more enthusiasm each day than I already had. For example, this summer, we had the World Health Organization that released a report declaring social health is the missing pillar, alongside physical and mental health. We're starting to see that this language is being adopted more and more. And I think one additional driver of that was the pandemic, because the lack of in person connection that we all experienced forced us into this conversation of, hang on, this really matters. How do we feel connected, even if we're apart? It brought more attention to what was already quite widespread loneliness around the world. And so I believe that in the next 10 years, social health will be as mainstream as mental health is today. You will hear everyone talk about it. There will be a booming industry around it that is already growing. I cannot tell you how much an innovation has accelerated in the space in just the last few years alone, and it's an exciting time. I think that will benefit us all, because the more that we recognize that our health isn't just physical and mental, it's also social, and start reinvesting in our relationships, that's really going to benefit each of us.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 40:19

Thanks for summarizing it in such a positive way, and that's how your book ends as well, and which is so nice to have a book end with a positive note. And you mentioned in your book you're moving from a soloist to a growing global choir, and how does that feel for you, having been a pioneer in this area?

Kasley Killiam: 40:43

It's amazing. There is such an incredible community of social health leaders around the world that is growing every day. And I'm very inspired by that, and just proud and grateful to be part of this movement and to both actively create it, but also to observe it grow. It's just remarkable. It's very exciting.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 41:05

Yeah, so before we end, the question we end with all of our podcasts interviewees, is, for the Gen z's, where would you recommend if someone wanted to work in this field or explore a role in this field, whether it was for professional reasons or personal?

Kasley Killiam: 41:26

Oh, that's a great question. I will be hiring in the space in the near future, so feel free to reach out. But I also think there are a lot of organizations in this space, and so it depends if your interests are in technology for social health, in education for social health, in healthcare, for social health, there's a lot of really interesting work that is being done, and through social health labs, we'll be kind of summarizing some of that innovation in the months to come. So please feel free to stay tuned for that and reach out at a local level as well. There are a lot of community nonprofits that are working on social health locally, even if they're not using that language, you know, people working with older adults or youth or all different groups to try and build community, to try to address loneliness. And I think all of that work at the local level too is really important.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 42:21

What I'm hearing is that you could go into a profession that you might be tending to study for anyway, but integrate social health, and if, for instance, your position, what kind of credentials would you be looking for somebody?

Kasley Killiam: 42:38

Yeah, the job posting is not live at this point. So this is preemptive, but certainly some of those skills are going to be project management. It's going to be relationship and network building, right? People who are can get things done, but also are good at the relationships. All of these skills, I think, kind of zooming out and thinking career wise, no matter what role you have when you're graduating from UCLA or any school, you can use your skills to apply to social health or to whatever it is that you're passionate about. And so I would encourage anyone who's younger to just be in the mode of building skills, and then you'll be able to find ways to apply those to what you really care about. That's certainly been true for me and many other people that I know.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 43:25

Thank you for that. I really like that advice. And somebody who just retired from the total worker health from CDC, which is part of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and at the CDC, recommended that people who graduate need to have the skills to be adapt to change. In a way, social well being is a real foundational piece to be able to manage change. So it's not just being able to integrate it into your work, but also into your life with your 531 advice.

Kasley Killiam: 43:59

Absolutely, practice what we're preaching here.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 44:02

Yeah, and also reflect. What I heard from your journey was that you really reflected on your own patterns and your passions, and it led you to this unchartered territory that has now become your profession. This leaves us with the last but not least, question that we ask all our people we interview on this UCLA Live Well podcast is, what does it mean for you to live well?

Kasley Killiam: 44:32

Such a good question. I would love to actually read a quote in response to that question, if I may, because this is a quote that answers my philosophy for living well, and it's one that I've been coming back to for as long as I can remember. I think I first read this quote, which is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, as a high school student, and I read it a few times a year, and it still kind of anchors me. So the quote is this. "To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." And I would add, that's to live well. For me, that's what it means.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 45:33

Wow, that's really lovely. I love that. Thank you. I'm gonna have to put that up on my wall, so thank you. Thank you again, so much. What a pleasure, and I look forward to seeing when your next book might come out. I don't know when that is.

Kasley Killiam: 45:47

Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Thank you so much, Wendy, I really appreciated our conversation, and thanks for all you do.

Dr. Wendy Slusser: 45:54

Thank you. Thank you, Kasley. Thank you for joining us for this insightful conversation with Kasley Killiam. Her thoughts on social health and the importance of human connection remind us that our well being is deeply tied to our relationships. Let's all strive to build meaningful connections and support each other in living well. Until next time, take care, stay connected and live well.