It’s easy to forget that true wellbeing doesn’t just play out on your yoga mat or on your plate, but also in your relationships. In the same way that physical and mental fitness builds a healthy body, social fitness builds a healthy spirit—and is just as important to work on, nurture, and maintain. At least, that’s what Harvard-trained sociologist Kasley Killam says. She’s even devised a simple method for cultivating better social health she calls the 5-3-1 rule.
What is the 5-3-1 rule?
Humans are social creatures by nature, thriving on their connections to others. In Killam’s book on social health, The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living (2024), she says our human network is a living organ: It breathes, stretches, and weakens if we stop nourishing it. And, like everything that keeps us upright, it deserves daily attention.
Thus, the 5-3-1 rule is not a strict discipline or another wellness to-do list. Rather, it’s an invitation to sculpt relational wellbeing with the same attention we give to our skincare and workout routines. To achieve this, Killam identifies three numbers and three factors to keep in mind in order to keep your “social muscles” strong:
Five: Every week, spend time with five different people or social groups, to multiply interactions and integrate more social life into your day-to-day. These interactions can be with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, or acquaintances.
Three: Every month, give yourself at least three deeper interactions with people from your close circle—a.k.a. those with whom the social masks can come off.
One: Every day, devote an hour or so to social interaction, however small or fragmented, to meet your daily social needs. Chat with your workout instructor. Make small talk with the neighbor. Call your brother. The little actions add up.
By bringing these three gestures together, Killam fashions a method that repairs, strengthens, and re-enchants the invisible social fabric that sustains us. The 5-3-1 rule doesn’t promise a perfect life—just one that’s more connected, stable, and alive.
The benefits of the 5-3-1 rule
In a world in which we take care of our skin, sleep, errands, work, and food, we can forget that wellness is also nourished by the invisible threads that connect us to others. Killam reminds us that social health is not a luxury, but an essential pillar of equilibrium. Practicing these three simple gestures (five different weekly contacts, three more genuine monthly exchanges, and one hour of daily sociability), awakens a part of ourselves that is too often put on the back burner or underestimated.
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