FEATURE
The Human Connection Project: shared meals for mental health Words by Matthew Boyce
A
s you read this article, every single day across Australia we are losing eight lives to suicide1. In addition to this, in 2018, 4.8 million Australians were diagnosed with a mental or behavioural issue2. What is more important to comprehend is that behind these alarming numbers are human lives someone’s father, mother, sister or son. It is not just those we lose to suicide that are affected. It is their families, their colleagues, their networks and their communities. You could be walking past someone on the street who is suffering and, in most cases, you would not even register that something might be affecting them. The reason why I am so passionate about this space is that in 2015, after the loss of my best friend in an accident, I found myself struggling with the same issues. I had become socially isolated, in a depressive state and had occasional suicidal tendencies. I could have so easily become one of those
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eight lives lost. It was here I had an epiphany. The depression I was suffering wasn’t caused by Justin’s passing, however, my grief was. My depression was caused by a complete absence of human connection. I was surrounded by people, but I had built walls up to not let anyone in. I wasn’t depressed from the loss of my best friend. I was depressed from the loss of connection with Justin and, in turn, loss of my community’s human connection. It was here I made a promise to educate and empower others to highlight the importance of human connection. It is no secret that our society has become the most digitally connected and, at the same time, the most socially disconnected we have ever been. We know that people are increasingly having feelings of disconnection and loneliness. We also know people who are more connected will become more resilient. Between ourselves and our
ancestors, throughout history and across cultures, the importance of food traditions has continued. Food has progressed from being simply an essential input for human survival and evolved into a vehicle for giving us a sense of community and connection, which is something we also need and seek. “Those who eat as we do have a connection with us; they are as we are” 3. From this we know that sharing meals and conversations can be one of the best ways to increase connections between human beings. What we need to do now, as a society, is find ways to facilitate and create a platform for these connections to occur regularly and easily. The very connections that could save a life, or eight. There is no ‘cure’ for depression as such, however, we can build and adopt preventative measures. The statement that depression is caused by a lowering of serotonin levels in your brain is one that I believe needs to be challenged,
