Relate · Brain health technique
Build or strengthen social skills
Evidence grade: Essential
Developing empathy, listening, communication, and conflict-resolution abilities that improve connection and trust across relationships. Can be practiced through real-world interactions, coaching, or group activities.
- Practice
- Relate
- Principle
- Engagement
- Tactic
- Strengthen Relationships
- Evidence grade
- Essential
- Strength of evidence
- High
- Effort
- Low
- Time commitment
- Low
How to practice Build or strengthen social skills
Actively practice listening, perspective-taking, and emotional expression. Join group activities or volunteering to expand social range. Reflect after interactions on what worked well. Read or attend workshops on communication if helpful. Treat social ability as a trainable skill, improvement compounds over time.
The evidence behind Build or strengthen social skills
Social cognition, understanding and responding to others’ emotions, engages prefrontal and limbic networks that also protect cognitive health. Longitudinal research shows people with strong social skills maintain better mental resilience and slower cognitive decline. Mechanistically, social learning exercises brain circuits linked to memory and executive control.
More Relate techniques
Take control of your brain health
BetterBrain gives you a personalized protocol of techniques like these, backed by science and tailored to you.