When Did We Stop Knowing Our Neighbours?

After 42 days of rain and all the right wellness habits, I finally traced the missing piece back to something surprisingly simple: each other.

I don't know about you, but I found this winter to be really tough. In England it rained for 42 days straight. Forty. Two. I tried it all — eating well, keeping up with workouts, getting enough sleep, taking vitamin D supplements, firing up my red light therapy lamp. And yet something still felt off. When I actually sat with that feeling and tried to trace it back to its source, I kept arriving at the same answer: community. Connection. The simple, irreplaceable experience of being with other people.

This isn't just a feelings issue. It's a biology issue. Social connection is a basic human need as fundamental as food, water, and shelter. Neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman puts it plainly: "Evolution has placed a bet that the best thing for our brain to do in any spare moment is to get ready to see the world socially." We are, quite literally, wired for each other. So when winter rolls in and our social lives quietly contract, there’s a reason we can feel so off.

And it seems like a lot of us are feeling it. The WHO Commission on Social Connection found that 1 in 6 people worldwide experience loneliness, and new estimates suggest that loneliness accounts for approximately 871,000 deaths each year. We live in a time of more digital connection than ever before, and yet we feel lonelier than ever.

As an extrovert, I knew connection was pretty much oxygen for me. So I started reaching out to friends to see if they were going through something similar, and the response was almost unanimous: yes. This led me to a morning walk with a neighbour of mine, and over coffee she said something that stuck. She wished our neighbourhood could be more like the one in the show Shrinking — where the neighbours all know each other, are outside often, and look out for one another. She was only half joking. And I understood exactly what she meant. Because what those fictional neighbours have isn't fancy or complicated. It's just presence. Consistent, caring, ordinary presence.

Social Baseline Theory, developed by psychologist James Coan, suggests that our brains actually evolved with the expectation of social connection. When we have supportive relationships, our cognitive and physiological load is lighter, tasks feel easier, and challenges feel more manageable. But when we are alone, our brains perceive the world as more dangerous, effortful, and exhausting. In one study, people standing with a friend estimated a hill to be noticeably less steep than those standing alone (Schnall et al., 2008). Community doesn't just feel better, it literally changes how we see the world.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking I can't relate, Kit, I was social all winter and have great people around me. I love that for you. But could you think of someone in your orbit — a neighbour, a colleague, a friend who's gone a little quiet and might be craving this a little more right now? You don't have to organise a dinner party. You don't even have to knock on their door. A smile and a "good morning" on your way to the shops. Offering to grab something while you're out. A voice note instead of a text. These small gestures are powerful.

For Your Kit:

This week, one small act of connection — intentionally. Pick one person you haven't spoken to in a while and reach out. Not a like on their Instagram, a real reach out. A voice note. A "thinking of you" text. A coffee date you've been meaning to book. Notice how it feels not just for them, but for you. Connection, like most things worth having, tends to be reciprocal.

And if you're feeling the winter blues yourself — please know that's not weakness. That's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: signalling that you need your people. Listen to it.