It’s SPECtacular (Ep. 3) | How Social Health Builds the Brain
- October 4, 2025
- 9:26 am
What is social health, and why is it crucial for brain development? In this video, Linda Gorman, neuroscientist and Founder of Making Neuroscience Fun, LLC, explores how our relationships, sense of self, and social environment shape the brain's ability to change — especially during childhood and adolescence.
Through the lens of the “Brain Health: It’s SPECtacular” program, Gorman explains how social behaviors like empathy, self-esteem, and connection are essential tools for brain development, supporting adaptability and lifelong wellness. Designed for educators, parents, and caregivers, this video shows how fostering social health among young learners helps lay the groundwork for a resilient, healthy brain.
Summary
Understanding Social Health: The Foundation of a Healthy Brain
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- What Is Social Health?
- How Social Health Shapes the Brain
- The Developing Social Brain
- Neuroplasticity and Social Growth
- Building and Maintaining Healthy Social Behaviors
- Social Media and the Social Brain
- Conclusion
- Key Takeaways
Introduction
Social health is one of the most powerful—and often overlooked—pillars of brain development. While schools increasingly teach social-emotional learning (SEL), few understand the deeper neuroscience behind it.
In the Brain Health: It’s Spectacular program, social health isn’t just about getting along with others; it’s about how social interaction physically shapes the brain, influences behavior, and supports emotional and cognitive well-being.
Humans are social animals. We depend on relationships for survival, learning, and adaptation. Understanding how our brains are wired for connection helps educators and caregivers nurture healthier, more resilient children.
What Is Social Health?
Social health refers to our ability to form meaningful relationships, communicate effectively, and navigate social environments.
It provides the tools for developing coping mechanisms—skills that help us deal with challenges and adapt to change. These tools include:
- Personal attributes: Sense of self, theory of mind (understanding others’ perspectives), and self-esteem.
- Social environment: Our relationships, communities, and cultural contexts—all of which evolve over time.
- Support systems: Networks of friends, family, mentors, and teachers that change as we grow.
Healthy social behaviors create a safety net that supports emotional balance, decision-making, and adaptability throughout life.
How Social Health Shapes the Brain
The social brain—a network of interconnected areas responsible for empathy, communication, and understanding others—begins developing from birth and continues to change well into adulthood.
These regions help us:
- Recognize social cues (facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures).
- Understand how others think or feel.
- Regulate our behavior within groups.
When social connections are strong, they stimulate neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new connections and adapt to experiences. In contrast, social isolation or negative interactions can reduce neuroplastic activity, making it harder to adapt or recover from stress.
The Developing Social Brain
Social development starts early:
- Infancy: Newborns can imitate facial expressions within hours of birth. A baby watching a parent stick out their tongue will mimic the behavior—an early sign of social learning.
- Childhood (Pre-K–Grade 5): Children begin forming a sense of self and learning empathy. Initially egocentric (“the world revolves around me”), they gradually develop theory of mind, understanding that others have unique perspectives.
- Adolescence: Brain areas tied to social behavior experience another wave of growth and reorganization. Hormones reshape connections, and peer relationships take center stage.
- Young adulthood: Social circuits mature, but continue refining into the late 20s or even early 30s.
Social development doesn’t stop—it evolves with every new stage of life.
Neuroplasticity and Social Growth
The nervous system’s constant change can seem unpredictable—but it’s what makes growth possible. Social behaviors, supported by neuroplasticity, are continually refined through feedback and experience.
By engaging in positive relationships and practicing empathy, individuals strengthen these social neural networks. Conversely, neglecting social interaction or fostering harmful relationships can limit that growth.
A healthy social life literally helps your brain rewire itself for connection, trust, and resilience.
Building and Maintaining Healthy Social Behaviors
Social health can be actively cultivated. These practices enhance the brain’s adaptability and emotional well-being:
- Know yourself and others.
Self-awareness strengthens empathy and communication. - Be kind—to yourself and others.
Compassion promotes positive neural patterns and reduces stress. - Invest time in relationships.
Building friendships and support systems requires energy and patience. - Adapt your coping mechanisms.
Different stages of life require new strategies; what worked at 10 may not work at 20. - Ask for help.
Seeking support enhances confidence, not weakness. It activates learning and stress-regulation circuits in the brain. - Strive to be authentic.
Pretending to be someone else—especially online—can harm your sense of self and your brain’s adaptive capacity.
Social Media and the Social Brain
Research shows that portraying a false version of oneself on social media disrupts the brain’s natural social processes.
Why? Because it creates conflict between self-perception and self-presentation, confusing the neural networks responsible for self-awareness and empathy. Over time, this mismatch can:
- Lower self-esteem.
- Reduce genuine social connection.
- Weaken neuroplasticity in social brain regions.
Encouraging authenticity, online and offline, helps preserve both social and neurological health.
Conclusion
Social health is not optional—it’s essential. It gives us the tools to build coping skills, adapt to change, and maintain emotional and cognitive stability.
When children (and adults) understand their social brain—how it grows, changes, and responds to connection—they gain a roadmap for healthier relationships and stronger mental resilience.
Social health is one of the four pillars of the Brain Health: It’s Spectacular framework, alongside Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive health. Together, these form the foundation of lifelong brain well-being.
Key Takeaways
- Social health = brain health. Our relationships shape how the brain grows and adapts.
- Humans are wired for connection. Social interaction is vital for survival and emotional regulation.
- Neuroplasticity powers change. Positive social behaviors strengthen brain flexibility and resilience.
- Healthy social habits: Be kind, seek support, adapt coping mechanisms, and stay authentic.
- Social media caution: Presenting a false self can harm brain development and social well-being.
- Lifelong growth: The social brain evolves from infancy through adulthood—keep nurturing it.
Raw Transcript
[00:00] We're now going to talk about social health and what is social health. And again, a lot of the school systems now are using the socio-emotional materials that are out there. So you know something about the social health. But a lot of people don't and a lot of people don't understand how social
[00:20] health affects your ability of your brain to change, which affects your ability to change your behaviors so that you can adapt to situations. So basically, humans are social animals. We need other people. We need social behaviors in order to survive. So basically
[00:40] The tools, our social health is going to provide us with the tools so that we can develop coping mechanisms. And those tools are going to include some personal attributes like your sense of self, theory of mind, your self-esteem. It's going to include your social environment. You have to wear a suit.
[01:00] social animal, we live in a social environment and our social environment always changes. So we need to be able to adapt to that social environment and then developing support systems and again those support systems just like everything else need to change. So when we look at the brain
[01:20] And again, I'm going to show you brain just because I love brains and it makes me happy to see them. But there are parts of your brain that basically develop into these social networks so that you can perform those social behaviors. You have your self-esteem. You know who you are based on other people.
[01:40] And this allows you to understand, recognize, and interpret social cues of others. Since we're a social animal, we have to be able to understand what others are doing in our social environment. And basically, starting from birth all the way to when kids are 9 or 10.
[02:00] these behaviors, these social behaviors are developing. Now one of the things that we have to understand is that until those brain areas are developed, we don't necessarily, we're not able to perform those social behaviors that we have.
[02:20] So we have to wait till the brain develops and basically these areas of the brain lots of Neuroplasticity going on the networks are forming and changing all the time as you get older these social networks Even though they're fully developed. They're changing all the time
[02:40] That's one of the things that I love about the nervous system is that it's constantly changing. That's something that a lot of people don't like about the nervous system because they can't know exactly what's going on in the nervous system. But basically during adolescence, we know that's when hormones are playing a role and it's changing.
[03:00] at the development, one of my favorite videos that I used to show was a newborn literally popped out and the dad's holding the baby and the dad is making faces at the baby with its tongue and the baby who doesn't even know it has a face or a tongue is watching and imitating. So we know that you
[03:20] imitate other behaviors. So this is something that we need to realize is that kids will imitate other behaviors. You know that sense of self has to do with them understanding and you know that little ones, they're very egocentric, but then they grow out of that because the theory of the mind comes in.
[03:40] They start to understand that other people have different ways of seeing the world, have different perceptions of the world. All of these things, this has to be developed. And this develops during the elementary school ages. And it continues through adolescence, which as I said, adolescence goes anywhere from
[04:00] middle school, through high school, through college. My college kids used to hate it when I say they were still adolescents. But again, anytime you have hormones that are affecting your development of your brain, that's adolescents. And that can go because, again, there's no, we've sort of got ballparks on when these developments.
[04:20] occur and this can go anywhere from mid-20s to early 30s. So again, the social brain, we know that there are areas high in neuroplasticity. So if we look at our social behaviors and we look at the tools that we're able to do. So again, we know that these behaviors are changing.
[04:40] And how can we enhance our social behaviors? Well basically, get to know yourself as well as others. Be nice to yourself as well as others. When you're nice to yourself, it's easier to be nice to other people. If you're nice to other people but not nice to yourself, then that's
[05:00] It's not good for your social brain. Take care of yourself and others. Putting the time and energy to build relationships. And again, relationships are hard to build. Change during your entire life. So you need to focus on these things. Know when to change your coping mechanisms.
[05:20] and know when to ask for help. I can't tell you how many students that I've advised that they're so afraid to ask for help because it makes them feel like their sense of self is lower because of that. No, your sense of self is going to be better. Your self-esteem is going to be better.
[05:40] going to be better. And then you want to strive to be the person that you want to be. One of our stories is about social media. And one of the things that we know, and we know this because of research that's been done, is that when someone portrays themselves as something different on social media, then they actually are.
[06:00] they're hurting their social parts of their brain. And by hurting it, I mean that they're compromising those neuroplastic mechanisms so that their brain isn't able to change, and it's detrimental to them. So all of these things are going to increase neuroplasticity, increase the neuroplasticity,
[06:20] neuroplasticity in those parts of the brain that are controlling your behaviors. So again, when we look at how to have a healthy brain, our social health is going to provide us with the tools. If we have a good sense of self, good self-esteem, we have a good support system.
[06:40] our brain is going to be healthy and that's what we want to do. Now again, social health isn't the only thing. You want to also have good physical health, emotional health, and cognitive health. So we'll move on to the next section.
