Exam Study Expert: ace your exams with the science of learning

200. Friendship Expert Dr Kimberly Horn on Social Connection Science for Scholars

• William Wadsworth

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Social connections are critical for mental and physical wellbeing, and they significantly impact academic performance. Dr. Kimberly Horne shares evidence-based insights on nurturing friendships even during busy periods of study and examination preparation.

• Loneliness affects concentration, GPA, and even immune system function
• College social terrain differs dramatically from high school, requiring new connection strategies
• Introverts can benefit from sitting in the same class spot and keeping notes about conversation topics
• Scheduling social time should be as intentional as scheduling study time
• "Micro connections" of just 5 minutes can provide significant benefits during busy periods
• Finding your "tribe" through shared interests makes forming deeper connections easier
• Friendships serve as anchors during challenging times on campus

If you found this episode helpful, please consider leaving us a review, following the show, or supporting us on Patreon. Your engagement helps us reach more people with these important messages about study success and wellbeing.


Questions? Comments? Requests? Or just want to say "thanks" - send me a text message (I read them all!).

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Exams to the Expert podcast. My friends, today we're talking about the power of social connection, why it matters to us all, and especially to us students and scholars. We're going to be talking about how we can nurture those all-important friendships and social connections even when we're super busy and even when we don't perhaps make friends or feel we make friends that easily. This episode forms part of our occasional well-being series focusing on all those things, all those ingredients that help us be as successful as we can be in our scholarship. We talk about things like managing your mental health, your well-being, stress, anxiety, and the power of social connection is a really important component of that that we've not really talked about at all on the podcast before. To help us navigate this, I'm delighted that we're joined by the wonderful Dr Kimberly Horne today. Kimberly is a longtime professor, a research psychologist and author currently at the Virginia Tech University. Her message is clear there is very substantial evidence that social connections are an important component for not only mental but even physical well-being. I came across Kimberly's work recently via her wonderful book Friends Matter for Life, which I'd highly recommend, and was immediately very keen to bring her onto the show to teach us more, because when I'm talking to my students, my clients in my coaching, work so much of the time like that, those then there's kind of social connections at school, at university. You know, even for some of the professionals I coach, that kind of social component can be a real sort of source of things that we worry about. It's going to be a real source of kind of tension, anxiety and and when we get it right, it can be a real source of support and a hugely valuable part of our ultimate success in our scholarship and in our having a nice time as a human being generally. So we're releasing this episode in September and, as I mentioned in the episode a couple of weeks back, september always feels like back to school season for me, so many new terms and semesters get underway for so many of us. So perhaps a particularly good episode.

Speaker 1:

If you yourself are starting out at a new school, new college, new university at the moment if that's you, then kimberly has some very nice, very gentle, very practical ideas, uh, for us to help us build those all-important connections as we're getting into our uh, as we're kind of establishing ourselves perhaps in a brand new social environment. We'll also be looking at specific suggestions to help if you're especially socially nervous, um, and taking a look as well at some ideas. You know if and I particularly relate strongly to this recently, you know, if you feel like you're just juggling a bajillion things and you find yourself struggling to keep up with friendships as a result I'm thinking particularly, perhaps, of some of my professional clients here who are putting in, you know, all those hours of study for a demanding exam alongside a day job and perhaps even caring for a family too. So, lots of ideas, no matter where we are in our journey, and I think you'll find a lot of really wonderful, really kind of actionable steps to take today.

Speaker 1:

You know this isn't just a kind of a pep talk. Oh, this really matters. You know, kimberley has some really just really nice, really practical ideas that I think we'll all be able to kind of take away and no matter where we're at, no matter what we struggle with, there'll be something useful in this episode that you can use to help you move forward. So I really hope you enjoy today's episode. Let's welcome Kimberley to the show. So, kimberley, a very warm welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, William. I'm honoured to be here.

Speaker 1:

We're honoured to have you here and we'd love to just give us your brief introduction to sort of who you are and what you do.

Speaker 3:

Sure, my name is Dr Kimberly Horne. I'm a research psychologist and professor and I've been in the academy in the US for it's hard to believe, going on 30 years now and I've spent, you know, a chunk of my career mentoring and training college students along the way, both in the classroom and as part of my science. And you know, much of my research over the past of decades has really focused on public health and in my research I've seen how our health is so impacted by our social connections and, as you're probably aware, there's been an increasing loneliness epidemic in the world, all across the world, which is a public health crisis. So, more recently, I've taken my work as a professor and a scientist and tried to figure out how I can use both my research and my lived experience to address that loneliness crisis.

Speaker 1:

So I wonder if you could share maybe a little bit more on kind of why connection is so important. So you know, there's obviously there's been a fair bit of work out there and you know, perhaps just give us a little bit more colour on sort of the ways you know human connection can kind of positively impact people and how its absence can cause us challenges.

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean when I recently turned my messaging around my research and my work to a book, and the book is called Friends Matter for Life and in fact they do. And my hope is that we can look at friendship as an antidote to to loneliness, because it is something that's available to almost everyone. You know, friendship as something that's accessible to us to address loneliness, I think is important across the lifespan and, as you mentioned, research has shown us more and more no-transcript. But on the flip side of that, when we are more connected, when we have those people in our lives that we can depend on and rely on, we get all those feel-good hormones. We get those warm and cozy hormones and chemicals that just help us to be healthier, less stressed, more relaxed, more in tune with ourselves and those around us. So the list just goes on and on of the benefits and in fact, that more just recently, the US Surgeon General underscored that our social health is just as important as our physical health.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean speaking for me, me personally, and I'm not proud of this, but you know when times get busy, uh, as life has been for me personally recently, uh, you know, had I've got two, two small children, and that keeps you quite, quite busy and, uh, you know it's been a busy time sort of with with my, my work and exam study expert you, which I love, but it's been quite a full life in recent years and the thing that gave first and was last to come back and I am happy it's now coming back for me was connections with friends, and I don't know whether that's a kind of a common thing, but you know, that sort of seems like a luxury sometimes when life is really busy, and perhaps it shouldn't be that way.

Speaker 3:

I think that is common. I mean, there are major transition points and I know your podcast has a large audience of college students and those who serve college students, maybe those who are getting ready to enter college and going to college is up there with the major life transitions that you just described, which is becoming a parent and getting more busy professionally. We experience these different transitions in life, our whole lives, and there are times when, you know, friendships wax and wane in terms of importance and in terms of accessibility, wax and wane in terms of importance and in terms of accessibility. But my point is that, even through these transitions, we can find ways, and should find ways, to prioritize those friendships and connections in our lives.

Speaker 1:

And excited to talk to you Because they matter especially more.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Well, that's the thing. It's the time you need it.

Speaker 1:

It's like the old quote from the, the dalai from the sort of attribution to the dalai lama.

Speaker 1:

It might be apocryphal, but you know the the busy businessman that says, oh, I don't have 10 minutes a day to meditate, and then he goes oh well, then you need to do it for two hours. The more the harder it is to fit in, the more we, more we need it sort of thing. And so I, I knowley you talk about this term, social terrain, and you mentioned quite rightly that many of our listeners are either at school or college university. You know, you've worked in that environment for a long time. Like, firstly, what is social terrain to you and, kind of, how would you characterize the social terrain of particularly being at college or university?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, I mean social, um, changes throughout our lives, right? And I think that, uh, we have to learn to adapt and adjust to those, those different types of terrain, terrain at different points in our lives, and you know, college, for example, um, or going to college, especially for the first time, creates a new kind of terrain. These are situations and circumstances that we have to learn to navigate and sometimes they require new skill sets, sometimes they require brushing up on old skill sets. But when you think about college, going to college especially and a recent study came out that I found very interesting, that it was in the Journal of Adolescence and that a lot of times when students go away to college, they expect the terrain to be very similar in college in terms of making friends and connections, as it was in high school, similar in college in terms of making friends and connections, as it was in high school. In fact, some students even think it's going to be easier, and in fact it's not for many, for most, in fact. And where that delta lives and what they expect and what the reality is lives, and what they expect and what the reality is is where loneliness can creep in, and you think about the terrain of, let's say, high school, when you have more built in a terrain that has built in conditions for connection.

Speaker 3:

One you've probably been with the same group of peers for, in some cases, maybe a decade, right, you've joined the same teams. You've been in the same group of peers for, in some cases, maybe a decade, right, you've joined the same teams. You've been in the same classrooms, you've passed in the same hallways and stopped at your lockers and you've been at the same lunch tables and maybe even the same bus stops. So that's very familiar terrain.

Speaker 3:

And when students go away to college, that terrain shifts significantly and a lot of times the whole geography is far more massive than what they might have experienced in high school. There are hundreds of new peers, new faces, new conditions going to and from classes. You know varied ways to have meals and share meals with individuals. So that terrain looked very different socially than it did when they were in high school. And the expectations that things are going to be easier are not the case and students can feel very behind quickly because there's this expectation. Well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm just gonna make it's gonna be so easy to make friends and connections.

Speaker 1:

I have all these people around me, and that's not the case certainly one thing I remember about my experience you have a sense that you can do anything, but you can't do everything. You can't even do a tiny fraction of it. So, um yeah, it's almost sort of overwhelming. Where do you even start? So certainly there's that sort of challenge of transition. I mean any other sort of trends or challenges you've noticed among students as they kind of progress through the college, their kind of time at college, when it comes to sort of challenge, staying connected I've had um because I've worked with so many, in fact hundreds of students over the years.

Speaker 3:

I've I've seen both sides, you know. I've seen the the, the beauty, and I've seen the struggles. I think there are two types of loneliness happen around this time period. One is the you know, the social loneliness of thinking like gosh, I just don't have that many people to hang out with. You know, I don't. I'm not sure exactly where my tribe is right now, I don't know the right people.

Speaker 3:

And then there's the emotional loneliness, which is sometimes more difficult to navigate because they feel like I don't really have anyone who knows me deeply, I don't have anyone that I feel truly connected with, and that's a big part, I think, when students go away to college, that's a big part of what they miss with their familiar friends and families that you know, emotional loneliness can be very painful.

Speaker 3:

So those are some of the things that I've certainly seen. Even though people may have crowds around them, they still don't feel they don't feel connected. They don't feel connected. You know it's, and that I think that's important to know that that time period around 18 to 25 is a high risk period for loneliness in general, because that's when, that's when we're starting to really think about who we are and our identity and where do we belong and who, who is our tribe, who are our people and and and it also comes with autonomy and you know, trying to figure out who you are without the rails and the you know and the um, the guideposts that have been there your whole life. That makes it become even more challenging to to to find out who you are and who you belong with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure for sure, and I wonder if I could just ask a little sidebar question. We're building towards maybe talking about some. What could we do about all of this? But I just wanted to ask quickly first, if I could. You know, I'm just curious what was the motivation for you know your interest in this field and obviously getting to the point where you wanted to write a major book on the subject?

Speaker 3:

My motivation, I think, came from motivation for the book, came from many years of seeing how social connection and social, our social networks, are tied to almost every aspect of health behavior. A lot of my studies were related to, let's say, addiction, tobacco use in particular, physical activity, nutrition, those sorts of things. And in almost all of my studies, somewhere somewhere in the risk factors or somewhere in the protective factors, social support came through. I think. During the pandemic I saw my research playing out all around me and it was a grand experiment for loneliness and social connection and, and like most people, I had a lot of time to think during that time period and it made me want to do more than another study, because some of my studies, my studies, said we're clear.

Speaker 3:

So how do we translate that and get the message out of? How do we better connect and why is it important for our health and our overall well-being? And I just, you know, kind of started dabbling in writing and thinking through how I could communicate this message through a book that would be read by more than you know a handful of people, which, as we talked about earlier, william, I have a lot of academic publications, but geez, who reads all of those, and I'm lucky if each paper is read by 10 people. So I thought that perhaps a book would be something that could be more consumable and would reach more people and teaching them and sharing the message of why we need each other in this world, why community is important, why friends are important, why connection is important to just every aspect of our being, and I guess that's in a nutshell where how I landed here yeah, yeah, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

That's in a nutshell where how I landed here. Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful, that's wonderful. Well, we should dive in if you're willing to talk a little bit about what we can do. So I'm sure this is a big monster open-ended question for a specialist in the field, but kind of, what are some of the big things we can think about when it comes to sort of nurturing those connections that are so important?

Speaker 3:

One of the points I want to make right off the bat is to people who are listening is why this is important, particularly in the academic realm. We know that I like to think about friendship as a health intervention, right, I mean, it's just good for us and, you know, psychologically I think it's important to know that when we don't have it and we don't feel connected, I mean it can be linked to anxiety and depression and various types of stress. Academically, when we're lonely and disconnected, our concentration is less. It can lead to lower GPA and irregular attendance in class and all the other things that affect performance, like sleep disruption and fatigue. And, just, you know, our immune system's just not functioning, you know, at optimum. So you know, friends and connections can help buffer that. I want to make that clear, that that is really the context of all of this is that, especially given your podcast and your audience, that this you know, yes, there are particular ways we can study and perform and have our performance be. You know, yes, we, there are particular ways we can study and perform, and, and and have our performance, be, you know, heightened. This is also a part of that mix is making sure we're taking care of ourselves socially and so, um, I think, if we're setting some, you know, real X, realistic expectations for how do we, how do we approach this, you know I think it's very practical, so I don't want people to overthink it there are some real practical, tangible, step-by-step things that people can do, that students can do to enhance their relationships and their friendships.

Speaker 3:

First, I want to normalize it. Particularly those who might be going off to college or starting college for the first time, it's very, very normal for it to take time to make new friends. It's not something that happens in days, you know. It is something that can take, you know, weeks or months to nurture those kinds of friendships, and it's common to feel lonely in the beginning and it's also temporary. So it's something that people can sort of, you know, wiggle their way through and develop some skills to help get through. It's a myth that you know you're going to make all of your best friends. You know the welcome week and you know from all these other initial activities that take place. It's a skill and it takes practice. So I think you know there are some, are some, there are no doubt there are some people who making friends is a little more difficult than others, and we can talk more about that if we want to get a little bit more nuanced.

Speaker 3:

But if I could just like talk about some, some daily habits, let's just say that you know you're starting your freshman year, you have a series of classes. Sometimes it might help just to try to sit in the same spot in the classes that you go to and, you know, strike up conversations with the people that also happen to sit. There are those people who like to sit in the same spot and if you can sit in the same spot and you also have other people who are sitting in the same spot, that can certainly be a way to have conversation starters, particularly when you're feeling a little awkward about it. Someone to walk back to. You know a dorm or a coffee shop or somewhere on campus. You know, walk together, just say, hey, would you like to walk? And, you know, grab some coffee or you know whatever it is.

Speaker 3:

That might be something that you could do afterward with just one person. It doesn't have to be a gang or a group. One of the things I like to recommend too and I do this myself, especially if I'm going to be in new situations, meeting new people is. I keep kind of a running notes about people in my phone and I think that that can be incredibly helpful. You know Sarah English loves to hike, you know, just like just brief notes to help me remember and jar my memory and I go back to those If I'm going to a new meeting or a new group. I look back on those because those help me start conversations, especially when it might be a little awkward and I don't really know the circumstances that well, use people's names, you know, say people's names, smile.

Speaker 1:

Show that you're open to possibility of conversation.

Speaker 3:

Put your phone down, look up, smile at people, show that you're open to conversation. Those are very important cues, and I think we have to be careful about overlying on social media, too, for making our human connections. And I'm not dismissing social media I value it, I use it and I think it has a place when it comes to making new connections. I think that we can use it as a bridge and not as a way to just fully. That's the only way that we communicate with people, and maybe you're connecting with someone. You've shared numbers, you're texting, or maybe it's a new online group. That's perfectly fine and those are ways to start relationships, but I also think it's incredibly important to find FaceTime with each other.

Speaker 3:

There are things that I think that are important are to find your tribe, find your people, think about and let your passion guide that you know are you. Do you want to get involved in a faith-based group? Are you physically active? Maybe it's intramurals, maybe it's a cultural group, maybe it's some group that's shaped around identity. Maybe you want to volunteer. So look for those sorts of activities that meet with your values and your passion and your identity. If it doesn't, don't be afraid to jump around and try different things. If something doesn't feel good, you don't have to stick with it. Do something else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's such great advice and thank you so much for sharing those ideas.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Certainly some things that I think, oh yeah, if I'd have my time again.

Speaker 1:

I'd definitely bear that in mind. I'd definitely bear that in mind. So thank you Absolutely. You mentioned, you know, for some people it's maybe a slightly longer process than others and some people find the making friends thing hard. You know, classically, perhaps, in the view of this, I'm someone who's maybe a bit more introverted than others and a bit more shy and awkward. I personally would consider myself a little bit further down that spectrum in terms of naturally, you know, I'm a bit more like oh, just I'll keep myself to myself, but then of course we never make friends, we never make those connections. Do you have any particular suggestions for people?

Speaker 3:

with that tendency, sure, um, you know, I think that there are there's some nuanced advice that it is meaningful to maybe someone who's shy or anxious or, you know, maybe they have some type of neuro divergence, whether that's ADHD or something else, where those situations are just, you know, kind of like you know nails on a chalkboard, it's not, it's it's, it's very uncomfortable and in some cases you know, kind of like you know nails on a chalkboard, it's not, it's very uncomfortable and in some cases, you know, kind of scary. So I would say, you know, start small. You don't have to be a big joiner, you know, if that doesn't feel good to you, if it's not comfortable. Again, I go back to the. You know, maybe focus in on, you know, sit in the same place in your classes or frequent the same places in the student center or in your residential facility, so that a lot of times that breeds sort of familiarity and you'll start to see the same sort of people.

Speaker 3:

Maybe it's you get comfortable enough to strike up a conversation and to be open, to smile when you can and I realize that retreat is important too, but to be aware, when it feels safe to to smile and to be open and to allow yourself to have that experience yourself to have that experience Again. I think keeping names and notes is very important because it's something that you can fall back on for, even if you have, like, conversation starters in your phone notes. I think that's really important because conversation starters can be things that you might be uncomfortable with on the fly.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

But if you know some of them and you've rehearsed some of them and you have them close by, you can take a look at them and that can give you a little bit more comfort and security, even if it's just hey, how's it going? I've seen you several times here, how's it going? Or are you in the storm or just maybe have two or three things that are easy conversation starters for you. The other thing is to really kind of reframe vulnerability. You know, sometimes people think that being the first person to reach out is is weak, reach out is weak and you know it's not, or they feel like they're not, they won't be well received, and so, again, those very brief conversation starters once things become more familiar.

Speaker 3:

The other thing I think is important is you're not on a clock. This is not a race. Yes, it's important to build connections and to make friends. Are it's just really important to set your own clock at this. You can make your pace slower if you need to, and it really is more about gaining people at this point that you have some depth with, and going back to that emotional loneliness versus the social loneliness is that you start to develop. It's important to start to develop relationships with people that feel a little deeper, especially if you have some social anxiety issues.

Speaker 3:

The other thing that I think might be particularly important is to find some study groups, because not only do they obviously they're important for performance, but the conversation and the themes around gathering are sort of built in. You don't have to be the person who initiates or think about what you're going to say, because you know you're going there to study X subject and it's built in. So, again, those are just some, some small tips, but I think that you have to follow. What I don't like to see is when people just completely retreat and their fear and anxiety prevents them from having any sort of interaction. So start small, do something. Do something and I think the rest will follow.

Speaker 1:

That's beautiful advice. That's beautiful advice. And the other sort of challenging case I wanted to ask you about was, I guess, kind of circling back to a comment I was making earlier. You know, when we feel like life's getting very busy, as it often does, particularly as we go through the year and get closer to kind of exam deadline, assignment season for students at college, university, or, you know, we have some professionals listening as well who are preparing for certifications and sometimes, you know, studying many hours a day on top of a demanding day job, on top of maybe having family responsibilities as well, really, really full life. Do you have any thoughts for us, when life does just feel really really full, on how we can keep that connection going?

Speaker 3:

So I think the pressure that we put on ourselves sometimes is that we have to have this like 50-50 balance right. We've got to have the. In some cases it moves into thirds because you've got a family, you've got a job, you have a lot of things going on, um, but I would say that balance is important. So, thinking about um, how you can can structure and schedule some social time just as you would your academic or your study time, it's very easy to, especially if you're someone who's very academic oriented and performance is very important to you. It's easy to fall back into I'm busy, I'm studying all the time and that's the most important thing. I would encourage you to set and integrate social time, to weave that in and it doesn't again, it doesn't have to be this 50-50 thing. I mean you've got to spend as much time socializing as you do academics. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that finding time to structure and schedule that social time is equally important as your study time. It doesn't have to be the same number of hours. I'm not saying that. I'm saying finding that time and structuring that time is very important.

Speaker 3:

I talk a lot about micro connections, william, and you know again, these aren't big chunks, but they're small breaks that can be incredibly important for our overall health, particularly if we're very focused on our studies or our jobs, as the case may be, or our families, just taking those moments to touch base with someone.

Speaker 3:

It might be in a text, it might be in a phone I'm a big fan of phone calls so you know, even if it's just a five minute, you know, phone call check-in, a maybe it, maybe maybe it's a friend from home that you want to, you know, catch up with, or maybe it's someone in the building, you know, across the, across the campus. But five minutes, a five minute break to have a connection with someone socially, even if it's a phone call, can have a huge impact and you can get right back to your studying if you need to. But those small breaks to weave those in, even if you can't find big chunks to socialize, are incredibly important. So think microdoses. You know microdoses, micro connections are incredibly important and those are those can fill some gap when you have other things going on.

Speaker 1:

Just thinking about even the times I got busiest as a student, you know, in that run up to the big exam season, the big finals exams, I was working eight, nine hours solid study a day and around that I was eating in the college cafeteria, college hall, so I'd be talking to friends and peers over lunch. And the room I didn't revise in my room, my sort of dorm room or whatever. I kind of revised in a communal space. It was a silent study space but there was a breakout room. So you know, at the top of the hour.

Speaker 1:

I'd walk out for five minutes say hello to someone get some water and and then a couple of you know there are a couple of times each week. You know I'd sort of wednesdays, thursdays evenings I'd be singing in chapel choir and and then sundays after lunch I'd just sort of take off and, um, you know, that would include some time to myself, that would also include some social time typically as well. So yeah, for me I find it really helpful, as you were saying, to kind of have that you know. For me I find it really helpful to kind of almost know my routine and have you know times planned in almost when I was going to see people and connect with people at different levels.

Speaker 3:

And I'm guessing that, that that routine didn't happen right away, that you had to find your groove, that that it took you a little time to figure out oh, those parts and pieces that would eventually become, you know, a part of your routine that you could fall back on and rely on I mean to an extent, yeah, I think you know some of the some of the routine was was sort of almost there for me in the sense of you know my singing, uh, commitments and then other parts.

Speaker 1:

So I just found like pretty early on in in revision in exam season, I found it quite helpful just to say just have a real because because you could say yes to every social invitation that comes your way and then you'd have no time to study. I just found it really helpful for me to have a rule if it was on a saturday night, I'd say yes to it. And so if it's a concert or a party and it was Saturday night, my answer was yes and that was just my default rule. So so I'd always end up doing something on Saturday night and then the rest of the week it would. It would be a no, but but that for me was a nice balance.

Speaker 1:

No one's not saying that's the right balance for everybody, but for me just having that, okay, I've got a night. That's, that's social night and and then I know, and then that sort of almost relieves a little bit of anxiety of making the decision do I do this, do I not? Am I going to have enough time if I do this? That kind of thing that was. That was quite helpful for me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, I like that a lot and I think that it does go to your point that you have to find, I mean, it's a little different for everybody and every person has to figure out what's going to work for them, and you know. So that's not, you know, because all work can lead to burnout and all social can lead to burnout. So you got to find, you know what, what works for you and and what's comfortable yeah, amazing.

Speaker 1:

I'm curious it's you were saying we were chatting before we joined and you said it's a bang on a year since the book was was published, um, I wonder if in that time have there been any um, you know, sort of like, you know it's a sort of feedback or stories that have come back from the world, um, from from readers, etc.

Speaker 1:

I suppose I'm interested, you know, particularly if there's, there's people that have that have made a change and and there's, you know, it's always kind of quite inspiring for people you know, may be thinking I need to do a bit more on this, or a bit worried about how this is going to go, and they can kind of hear a story from someone who maybe has started to pick up an idea or two and the difference it's made for them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm just wondering if there are any of those sort of stories that you have yeah, you know so many, and that has been one of the most beautiful parts of this book journey is people messaging me on social media or texting me how the book has impacted their lives.

Speaker 3:

And you know stories of people in, you know, in addiction recovery, who have reached out in their continued sobriety and skills that they had lost along the way, that they have revived to make stronger connections in their lives. Those have been really powerful stories. I've heard stories of people who are caregivers for, you know, for aging parents or for, you know, for their spouses or their children, who were just feeling desperately lonely and, through the book, realized how important connection is for their health and taking care of themselves, care of themselves. And certainly in, you know, in my experience with students, I've seen students who have made connections and or who hadn't made connections but are now reaching out to feel more connected and it's made a difference in them staying in school versus dropping out. So, you know, those are just some examples, and some of the stories I love too are people. My mother, for example, you know. She's in her 80s and she had lost touch with some friends from way back and she has recently and she'll send me a message like I this is your book.

Speaker 3:

Your book did this yeah she has reached out to some people. She just recently reached out to someone that she had not spoken to. They had just lost touch, as does sometimes. They hadn't spoken in 20 years and they had lunch together last week and they were together for five hours and she just she was just glowing, she was so happy. I mean nothing happened and that's just life. Sometimes Things don't happen. I mean there's no, there was no blow up. You know there's no. I mean there's no, there was no blow up. You know there's no tension or conflict. And life just gets in the way sometimes and relationships fade and sometimes they come back, as this was the case with my mom and her friend, and sometimes they can just continue to fade. But that doesn't mean that they never were important or they didn't bring you gifts. Sometimes we just have to treasure those gifts that people bring to us, even when they're no longer in our lives. It's somewhere along the way that that friendship, that relationship, served an important purpose.

Speaker 1:

That's a wonderful, wonderful story to share, thank you, and what a nice vision of the future for us all to think towards.

Speaker 3:

And I guess that you know that has been an important takeaway for myself in this book because I've certainly had friends that you know. They were incredibly meaningful at some point in my life and they're not in my life anymore and I still love them and I still treasure what they brought to me. It's just our lives. Lives have taken different paths and friends has changed. That's the dynamic part of my book. You know the eight tenets of dynamic friendship. I mean things. Life changes, you know, people change and I'm glad we do.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. Is there anything significant you feel we've missed that we should talk about, or have we done a good job?

Speaker 3:

I think we've done a good job. I mean, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't say that, you know, sometimes college campuses as we've seen of late are challenging and they're sometimes scary, and they're sometimes more difficult than we expect. They're oftentimes more than the joys of academia, and I underscore the importance, all the more importance, of friends and connections, because our friends are yes, they are people that are important for us socially. They are also our anchors when times get tough. So I think it's critically important to find those people in your life, those people that you can lean on and they'll help anchor you in both the easy times and the hard.

Speaker 1:

Well, what a lovely message to close on. Kimberly. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your wisdom in this area. If people want to find out a little bit more about the subject, is there anywhere we could?

Speaker 3:

we could go next yes, yes, yes, um. So my, my book is available on Amazon or basically anywhere, anywhere where you buy books. Um, and you can learn more about me on uh social media at drkimberlyhorn and uh drkimberlyhorncom.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'll link that up in the show notes for people, so you'll be to find the links down below Kimberly, Dr Kimberly. Thank you so much once again. It's really genuinely enjoyed the conversation today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

We'll talk again soon. Well, thank you so much again, kimberly. What a lovely conversation. I really enjoyed that and I hope you did as well.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Well, that was good, wasn't it? I found myself taking notes. If you need a reminder of anything from today, head to the website for a write-up of this episode, as well as lots more top-notch advice and resources. That's examstudyexpertcom. See you next time.